Materialism, narcissism and the attitide towards conspicuous consumption

Branko Velov, Vesna Gojkovic, Veljko Djuric
2014 Psihologija  
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
more » ... . 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.
doi:10.2298/psi1401113v fatcat:jrfohjbxxncgxatbf6ro2kg33y