Materialism, narcissism and the attitide towards conspicuous consumption

Abstract

Conspicuous consumption (purchase of expensive goods and services in order to visibly demonstrate buying power) is a frequent and widely spread type of consumer behavior. Besides its economic dimension, conspicuous consumption certainly also has its - for now under studied - psychological dimension. So far, it has been reported that positive attitude towards conspicuous consumption is associated with conformity, high esteem of authority, social anxiety, Machiavellism, and ruthless self-advancement. In this study, using a sample of 272 high school students (aged 16-18) we studied predictive relationship between narcissism and materialism, and the attitude towards conspicuous consumption. The data indicated that materialism was a significant predictor of the attitude towards conspicuous consumption, quite in line with some previous research. In spite of a significant correlation between narcissism and materialism, narcissism was not a significant predictor of the attitude towards conspicuous consumption. Thus, this study has widened nomological network of the attitude towards conspicuous consumption and clearly delineated two seemingly similar psychological constructs: materialism and the attitude towards conspicuous consumption.

Seeking attention versus seeking approval: How conspicuous consumption differs between grandiose and vulnerable narcissists

“…Individuals seek to acquire symbols, such as brands, strongly related to what they perceive as their idealized self, and they seek ownership of high‐status goods especially when their self is under threat (Sivanathan & Pettit, ). Evidence linking materialism to conspicuous consumption (Velov, Gojkovic, & Djuric, ) suggests that conspicuous consumption may be particularly prevalent in people with an unstable self‐concept. Given their fragile self‐esteem (Morf, & Rhodewalt, ) and continuous need for confirmation of their unrealistically high self‐views (Bosson et al, ), narcissists may adopt conspicuous consumption as a self‐enhancement strategy.…”

Social Rank Styles, Machiavellianism and the Attitude Toward Conspicuous Consumption

“…The examples of representative items were the following: "People respect you more when you wear branded clothing", "Branded clothing raises confidence of people wearing it", and "Wearing branded clothing tells a good financial status". The rationales for using brand name clothes was a manifestation of conspicuous consumption among Serbian high school students, and we followed the rationale for formulating all statements in the third person given by Velov et al (2014).…”

“…Although far from conclusive, this psychometric evidence is congruent with the idea that conspicuous consumption goes hand in hand with other essentially antisocial behaviours. The recent paper (Velov et al, 2014) has reported predictive relationship between materialism (a strong conviction that possession and accumulation of material objects is the key for happiness and social affirmation) and ATCC. Taken together, these findings extend our understanding of psychological foundations of conspicuous consumption.…”

“…Since our preliminary and published paper (Velov, Gojković, & Đurić, 2014) indicates that people are rather reluctant to admit practicing conspicuous consumption, we have opted for examining the attitude toward conspicuous consumption (hereinafter ATCC), as an indicator of the actual inclination toward conspicuous consumption. Namely, one could expect different linear associations between ATCC and the three social rank styles, as defined by RSPQ.…”

Showing to friends or strangers? Relationship orientation influences the effect of social exclusion on conspicuous consumption

“…This study evaluated the influence of social exclusion on conspicuous consumption and expanded the social exclusion theory to consumer behavior. Second, previous research has investigated the effects of antecedent variables, such as power (Rucker & Galinsky, 2009), materialism (Velov, Gojkovic, & Duric, 2014), and mating (Wang & Griskevicius, 2014), on conspicuous consumption, which contrasts with this study. We considered the effect of social exclusion as an antecedent variable on conspicuous consumption and thereby enrich conspicuous consumption research.…”