ABSTRACT
Materialism is a central construct in marketing and consumer behavior research. It has been the focus of substantial research by social scientists, and it is also well known by lay persons more generally, at least in western societies. Although most people probably have an intuitive feel for what it represents, and they can readily give examples of materialism, its conceptualizations, definitions, and operationalizations vary widely. For example, materialism has been defined as a collection of personality traits that relate to orientations to possessions (Belk, 1985), a personal value that reflects the centrality of possessions in people’s lives (Richins & Dawson, 1992), an extrinsic motivational focus (Kasser & Ryan, 1993), and a preference for material objects over experiences (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003). Materialism has also been closely linked to the concept of conspicuous consumption (Veblen, 1899). These are only a subset of the many views on materialism.
