Exploring materialism and frugality in determining product end‐use consumption behaviors

Abstract

Materialism is often blamed for consumers' unsustainable consumption behaviors and its contribution to a growing "throwaway culture." Conversely, frugal consumers are regarded as both restrained in their acquisition, and resourceful in their use and disposal of products. In this paper, the authors challenge and empirically test these prevailing beliefs. The authors focus on a much-neglected aspect of the consumption continuum: the disposal of products at the end-use of consumption, and how key consumer traits (i.e., materialism and frugality) influence behaviors at this stage. Specifically, the authors examined three creative end-use consumption behaviors with a sample of 398 US consumers. Results support the counter-intuitive notion that materialism, alongside frugality, has a positive impact on consumers' sustainable consumption behaviors. The data suggest that materialistic consumers are prone to finding new and different uses for products and alternative methods of product disposal. The study's results also support the notion that frugality interacts with materialism to increase intentions to find alternative methods of product disposal. The authors discuss the implications pertaining to their findings and pave the way for future research in sustainable consumption. K E Y W O R D Screative end-use consumption behavior, frugality, materialism, PLS-SEM

Consumer motivation for product disposal and its role in acquiring products for reuse

“…Of the original eight items, only four loaded appropriately at values above 0.70 and without cross loading with other factors. These four items aligned with a consumer's careful use of money and economizing and were similar to other four-item solutions in recent work that used Lastovicka et al's (1999) scale (Evers et al, 2018;Goldsmith, Flynn, & Clark, 2014).…”

“…Frugality (Lastovicka et al, ) is an example of a consumer belief that encourages individuals to extend a product's life, as a means to save money. Frugal tendencies are closely correlated with “restrained product use behaviors” (Evers, Gruner, Sneddon, & Lee, ; Lastovicka et al, ). As Lastovicka et al (:p.96) define it, frugality is: “… sacrifice in denying a series of short‐term purchasing whims and industriousness by resourcefully using what is already owned or available for use; all of this is in service of achieving longer term goals”.…”

When the frugal become wasteful: An examination into how impression management can initiate the end‐stages of consumption for frugal consumers

“…Interestingly, frugality has been defined as a type of anticonsumption lifestyle, as it is adopted voluntarily by individuals who want to reduce their consumption (Albinsson, Wolf, & Kopf, ; Khamis, ; Kropfeld, Nepomuceno, & Dantas, ; Nepomuceno & Laroche, ). While frugal individuals are known to refrain from making unnecessary consumption decisions prepurchase (Nepomuceno & Laroche, ), they also resourcefully use the products they already own postpurchase , extending product usage to avoid any new purchases (Evers, Gruner, Sneddon, & Lee, ; Lastovicka, Bettencourt, Hughner, & Kuntze, ). Therefore, there is a positive frugality‐usage intentions relationship, where frugal consumers delay the end‐stages of consumption (e.g., store, sell, dispose, etc.,) and consequently have greater intentions to continue using the products they already own.…”

“…In other words, continued usage intentions and the overall lifetime of the products anticonsumers own should be high. This is especially true for frugal consumers, for example, as they are known to be economically resourceful when it comes to acquiring and using goods and services, specifically using what they already have to delay future purchases (Evers et al, ; Lastovicka et al, ). While exploring factors related to what extends product life and usage is important to anticonsumption research, equally important is the investigation of factors that might diminish product usage postpurchase, especially for individuals who follow an anticonsumption lifestyle.…”

Being green in a materialistic world: Consequences for subjective well‐being

“…For instance, under certain circumstances, materialists may forgo consumption today to buy "dream items" in the future (Nepomuceno & Laroche, 2017;Tatzel, 2002). They may also be prone to finding new and different uses for products and alternative methods of product disposal (Evers, Gruner, Sneddon, & Lee, 2018) and appear to be more likely to keep and restore things (Cherrier, 2010). However, it should be noted that those observed seemingly sustainable practices are likely driven by materialistic tendencies.…”