Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations in Business College of Business (Strome) Administration Summer 1993 Materialism and the Self Kathleen Shirley Micken Old Dominion University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/businessadministration_etds Part of the Marketing Commons, and the Social Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Micken, Kathleen S.. "Materialism and the Self" (1993). Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), dissertation, , Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/pjk8-0606 https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/businessadministration_etds/111 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Business (Strome) at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MATERIALISM AND THE SELF by Kathleen Shirley Micken A. B. June 1971, College of William and Mary M.B.A. May 1983, College of William and Mary A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Old Dominion University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of DOCTOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION MARKETING OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY August 1993 Approved by: John/Bj Ford, IV (Chairman) Scott D. Roberts William Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT MATERIALISM AND THE SELF Kathleen Shirley Micken Old Dominion University, 1993 Director: Dr. John B. Ford, IV Materialism has been called the most significant macro development in modern consumer behavior. Despite its importance, research about die construct is rather new. Two scales have been developed to measure materialism, one proposed by Belk, the other by Richins and Dawson. The purpose of this dissertation is threefold. First, it extends the materialism research program by investigating the relationship between materialism and one's self concept. Hypotheses which drive the research posit that people who are more materialistic have lower self-esteem, are less likely to be self-actualized, are extrinsically rather than intrinsically motivated, and are likely to be high self-monitors. The second purpose is to assess the reliability and validity of the two scales. Third, the definition of materialism itself is addressed. Data were collected via a questionnaire distributed to adults. Hypotheses were investigated with correlation analysis. The reliability of the two scales was assessed by calculating Coefficient Alphas and item-to-total statistics. Confirmatory factor analysis and the hypothesis tests were used in assessing validity. A profile of materialists was developed by analyzing the top and bottom terciles formed from scores on the Richins and Dawson scale. All hypotheses were confirmed. People scoring high on the materialism scales were found to be less self-confident and to rely on the opinions of others. While materialism was equally distributed across categories of gender and ethnic background, materialists tended to be younger, to not have a college degree, and to have either relatively high or relatively low household incomes. The Richins and Dawson scale was found to be the more reliable scale. Validity assessment also suggested that it may be superior to the Belk scale. Finally, a distinction was drawn between materialism and other constructs such as consumerism and conspicuous consumption. The importance of the self-concept to an understanding of materialism and the resulting implications for the definition of materialism were explored. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright by Kathleen Shirley Micken 1993 All rights Reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I now know why the acknowledgement page in dissertations reads as it so often does. While one person is listed as the author, the dissertation is not a product of that individual alone. It is a collaborative enterprise. I would, therefore, like to thank and acknowledge my many collaborators. First, Patrick H. Micken, my husband, who cheerfully and patiently put up with the many interruptions in our lives over the past four years. Without him none of this would have been possible. I also want to thank my parents, Jim and Faith Ann Shirley, for their support, both emotional and financial. Their confidence has always been a basis of support for any endeavor. I wiil always be grateful the mentoring role of Dr. William J. Lundstrom. He hired me for my first teaching job and was a sounding board throughout the doctoral program. At Old Dominion University, members of the dissertation committee have been a delight to work with. The chair, Dr. John B. Ford, IV, was a source of support and encouragement. He made time for me when I was a new instructor, and has pushed me to "get it right" throughout the doctoral program. Dr. Scott D. Roberts has been a soul mate in a world of quantitative methodologies, and has seen to it that I not stop at my inclination to read for breadth, but to push on for depth as well. I am especially grateful to Dr. Edward P. Markowski not only for his assistance with research design and data analysis, but also for teaching the most understandable statistics class I have ever taken. I am also very grateful for the proofreading, provided in record time, by Patricia Harvey, Assistant to the Provost at Christopher Newport University. The help and kindness of Dr. Russell Belk and Dr. Marsha Richins have been especially gratifying. I hope the work here is partial repayment of my debt to them both. Finally, this dissertation was funded in part by a research grant from the faculty senate of Christopher Newport University. That funding allowed me to contract with the CNU American Marketing Association chapter to administer the surveys. With the leadership of Joanne Moore, president, and Mike Yaskowski, president-elect, the following students gave up their spring break and several weekends to get the job done: Doug Arnold, Melanie L. Brown, Marlene D. Brunk, Kimberly DeWalt, Barbara Farley, Beverly J. Foulk, Coralyn J. Hart, Melanie O. Jones, Jason C. McCarty, Tonya Oglesby, Jennifer Reeder, and Juley F. Young. To each and every one of them, thank you. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................ vi LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................viii Chapter 1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM...................................................... 1 Living in a Material World .............................................................. 1 Materialism and Religion ...........................................................2 The Spread of Materialism ......................................................... 5 Materialism and Marketing ....................................................... 6 Definitions ........................................................................................7 Descriptions of a Materialist ...................................................... 8 Conceptualization and Scale Development .................................13 Measures of Materialism and Consumer Attitudes, Behaviors, and Motivations ...............................14 The Proposal ...................................................................................16 Organization ............................................................................. 17 2. LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................19 Definitional Concerns ........................... 19 The Dichotomy of Needs Perspective .....................................20 The Social Science Perspective ................................................ 23 Historical Considerations ..............................................................26 The Meaning of Goods .............................................................26 Why Societies Became More Individualistic ..........................28 Materialism and Individualism ............................................... 29 Materialism Scales......................................................................... 32 Early Scale Development .........................................................32 Scale Development in Marketing ............................................ 38 The Belk Materialism Scale...........................................................40 ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Cross-cultural Measures of Materialism ................................40 Materialism and Attachment to Possessions .......................... 43 The Richins and Dawson Scale ..................................................... 44 The Self............................................................................................45 What Is the Self?........................................................................45 "How the Self Became a Problem" ......................................... 49 Culture and the Self ..................................................................54 Possessions as Means of Acquiring and Expressing Identity ............................................................... 58 Studies Investigating