Living In a Material World, Am I A Material Girl?

While most tend to label materialistic people as pretentious and vane, we may all have a little voice telling us to purchase that make-your-day bag or must-have necklace. Although Wray Herbert claims that materialism is correlated to anxiety and poor physical and mental health, he also maintains that most of us can't resist buying certain knick-knacks as a quick fix to self-fulfillment. We live in a culture of consumerism, constantly willing ourselves not to buy the new best gizmo or gadget. For example, how many of us have Ipads? Is an IPad necessary when we have a desktop, MacBook, IPhone, and IPod? Of course not, but we wouldn’t dare not have the set. The simple truth, at least to me, is that on some level we are all materialists. As a culture harping on consumerism, how can you expect us to be socialized any differently?

Wray Herbert’s current post on his blog We’re Only Human is titled, Awakening Your Inner Materialist. As a psychology writer, Herbert unsurprisingly connects the concept of materialism to our society's feelings, thoughts and emotions. He explains an idea from Northwestern. Even those of us at the top of the anti-materialism movement may respond to situational cues. Since materialism is associated with wealth, power, achievement, etc., it is relatively simple to be morphed into a consumerist. To make it even worse, since these values are shallow, dissatisfaction and social disengagement often surface. The following were done to test this theory:

1.   Volunteers were put in a controlled setting and asked to rate the pleasantness of certain images. These images ranged from luxury goods to more neutral images. Then, volunteers were asked to link these images to positive or negative emotions. The experimental group, who was more responsive to materialistic cues, had more negative emotions (i.e. stress, anxiety). Further, these people were also more socially disengaged. Herbert asks us to connect this study to the advertisements and T.V. commercials we see during the holidays. It may offer an explanation as to why negative emotion is often linked to the holiday season.

2.   The other two experiments, which were not explained as thoroughly, insinuate that when we try to find value in extrinsic things, emotions such as competitiveness and self-comparison come about.

All in all, Wray Herbert got me really thinking about how media cues trigger certain emotions within us. Constantly watching television commercials and advertisements about expensive things that we don’t need may inadvertently decrease our confidence and self-worth. This vicious cycle will never end, furthering the message that, if we can’t find an intrinsic moral code, the world will be a pretty tough place to face.

Here's Herbert's Blog: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/were-only-human/awakening-your-inner-materialist.html

Enjoy!