Opening up on consumer materialism

This dissertation comprises three main empirical essays, and a final chapter that synthesizes the findings and provides additional empirical evidence. The dissertation challenges current dominant theories of consumer materialism that have an overly aggregated, and overly negative, perspective of this consumer value. It shows that the three materialism dimensions have vastly different relationships with related variables, and even have positive consequences for consumers. The first essay examines age effects on materialism while controlling for birth cohort and period effects. It finds that materialism follows a curvilinear trajectory across the lifespan, with the lowest levels at middle age and higher levels before and after that. Essay 2 examines the implications of materialism for consumer savings and finds that materialism has both negative and positive effects on savings over time. Essay 3 examines the dynamic relationships between materialism and subjective well-being over time, and finds that the negative relationship between materialism and well-being is reciprocal, and due to only one of the three materialism dimensions. The other two materialism dimensions have positive effects on consumer well-being. The final chapter provides additional evidence demonstrating the differential and sometimes positive consequences of the materialism dimensions for consumers, and interrelates the findings.