The high price of materialism for kids:

Recent empirical research

 Tim Kasser, Ph.D.

Department of Psychology

Knox College

Our culture of consumption tries to convince people that a “good life” results from making money, purchasing the right things, having the right image, and attaining high status.

In other words, it attempts to get us to believe that materialistic goals are valuable and will bring happiness.

Past empirical research with adults shows, however, that people who are more materialistic are also less happy, have worse social relationships, and act in more ecologically destructive ways (Kasser, 2002). 

Research on materialism in children is sparse.  Thus, I conducted a study to assess materialism in middle school and high school children (Kasser, in press). 

206 children between the ages of 10 & 18 (Mean = 14.2) living in the rural Midwest were surveyed.  Materialism was measured by asking children to rate their level of agreement with four statements like “When I grow up, I want to have a really nice house filled with all kinds of cool stuff.”  Some of the statistically significant (i.e., p<.05) results are reported below.   

Personal well-being results.  Children who were more materialistic were less happy, had lower self-esteem, and reported more symptoms of anxiety.

Social behavior results.  Children who were more materialistic reported less generosity and allocated less money to charity when they imagined receiving a windfall. 

Environmental behavior results.  Children who were more materialistic reported engaging in fewer positive environmental behaviors (e.g., reusing paper, using less water while showering). 

In sum, consumer society propounds materialistic messages that may lead children to be less happy, to act in less prosocial ways, and to degrade the environment. 

Citations:

Kasser, T. (2002).  The high price of materialism.  Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press.

Kasser, T. (in press).  Psychometric development of brief measures of frugality, generosity, and materialism for use in children and adolescents.  In Conceptualizing and Measuring Indicators of Positive Development:  What do children need to flourish?  New York: Kluwer/Plenum. 

Tim Kasser, PhD (tkasser@knox.edu) is associate professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, IL. He is author of The High Price of Materialism (MIT Press, 2002) and co-editor of Psychology and Consumer Culture: The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World (APA, 2004).