A Consumer Values Orientation for

Materialism and Its Measurement: Scale

Development and Validation
MARSHA L. RICHINS
SCOTT DAWSON*
This article reviews the construct and measurement of materialism and concludes
that materialism is appropriately conceptualized as a consumer value. The devel-
opment of a values-oriented materialism scale with three componentsacquisition
centrality, acquisition as the pursuit of happiness, and possession-defined success
is described. In validation tests high scorers (compared with low scorers) desired a
higher level of income, placed greater emphasis on financial security and less on
interpersonal relationships, preferred to spend more on themselves and less on
others, engaged in fewer voluntary simplicity behaviors, and were less satisfied with
their lives.
A
merica is a consumer society, and many treatises
have described the dominance of consumption
motives among Americans (see, e.g., Bredemeier and
Toby 1960; deTocqueville [1835] 1954;Wachtel 1983).
In such discussions of consumption and materialism,
authors tend to speak of consumers as an undifferen-
tiated group, acting individually, perhaps, but guided
equally by the same consuming desire for goods. Hence,
Cushman (1990, p. 600) describes the post-World War
II consumer as "yearn[ing] to acquire and consume,"
Fox and Lears (1983, p. xii) see Americans as engaged
in "a ceaseless pursuit of the 'good life' " through con-
sumption, and Fromm (1967, p. 179) notes that "con-
temporary man has an unlimited hunger for more and
more goods."
While consumer goods do play an important role in
American culture, these analyses obscure differences
among individuals. For some, possessions are essential
to their lives and identities. For example. Lisa Labnon,
a 30-year-old New Hampshire woman, became home-
less when she lost her job and her condominium was
repossessed. She refused to sell her Mercedes and mink
coat, however, because the loss in image and self-esteem
*Marsha L. Richins is associate professor of marketing, University
of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211. Scott Dawson is associate pro-
fessor of marketing at Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207.
The authors thank Russell Belk for his helpful comments at various
stages of the research and on a previous draft of this article, Terri
Root-Shaffer for her contributions in early stages of the project, and
Todd Mooradian for his assistance in data collection. This research
was completed while the first author was at the University of Mas-
sachusetts.
303
would be too great (Gaines 1990). Malcolm Forbes was
well known for his commitment to a lavish material
life-style (Hirschman 1990), and Leona Helmsley com-
mitted crimes to increase her wealth. Others, however,
are content with far less in life, choosing low-paying
charitable or social service work instead of higher-pay-
ing professions (Henkoff 1989). Some relinquish all
personal possessions to enter religious life or join a
commune.
Although it is often useful to treat materialism as a
cultural or structural variable for purposes of comparing
cultures or examining institutions within a culture of
consumption (e.g., Inglehart 1981), much is to be gained
by examining individual differences in materialism as
well. For instance, research that seeks to identify factors
that contribute to individual materialism may provide
insight into the roots of materialism at a cultural level.
Examining materialism at the individual level also per-
mits the study of interactions between materialism and
various marketing activities such as advertising. Finally,
many of the hypotheses about materialism advanced in
the literature are more easily tested at an individual
than a cultural level.
This article describes a scale to measure materialism
among individuals. Prior to reporting scale develop-
ment, the notion of materialism is elaborated and prior
attempts to measure this construct are reviewed.
The Notion of Materialism
The terms "materialism" and "materialistic" are used
freely in ordinary conversation and by writers, fre-
quently without definition. Materialism originally re-
1992 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH. Inc. Vol. 19 December 1992
All rights reserved. 0O93-530l/93/19O3-OO0l$2.0O
304 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
ferred to the philosophical notion that nothing exists
except matter and its movements (see, e.g., Lange [1865]
1925). In popular usage materialism more often refers
to a "devotion to material needs and desires, to the
neglect of spiritual matters; a way of life, opinion, or
tendency based entirely upon material interests," as de-
fined in the Oxford English Dictionary. Rassuli and
Hollander (1986, p. 10) describe materialism as "a
mi nd- set . . . an interest in getting and spending," and
Belk (1984, p. 291) defines it as "the importance a con-
sumer attaches to worldly possessions." Mukerji (1983,
p. 8), relying on Polanyi (1944) and Sahlins (1976), re-
fers to materialism as "a cultural system in which ma-
terial interests are not made subservient to other social
goals" and material self-interest is preeminent. When
a large portion of a society avidly desires to consume
goods for reasons that economists have traditionally
defined as nonutilitarian (e.g., status seeking, novelty),
a "consumer culture" is said to exist (e.g., Belk 1988;
Rassuli and Hollander 1986).
Many issues concerning materialism have been con-
sidered in the literature, including causes and conse-
quences of materialism, the behaviors and personality
characteristics of materialists, and moral considerations
(see Belk 1983 and Fournier and Richins 1991 for de-
scriptions of some of these themes). The following dis-
cussion describes only those themes that have consis-
tently appeared when theorists have defined materialism
itself (as opposed to describing related issues such as
the personal or moral consequences of materialism).'
Acquisition Centrality. Materialists place possessions
and their acquisition at the center of their lives. Daun
(1983) describes materialism as a life-style in which a
high level of material consumption functions as a goal
and serves as a set of plans. Materialism thus lends
meaning to life and provides an aim for daily endeavors.
According to Bredemeier and Toby (1960), materialists
worship things, and the pursuit of possessions takes the
place of religion in structuring their lives and orienting
their behaviors. Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton
(1981, p. 231) note the dominance materialism can
achieve in one's life when they say of some materialists
that "consumption for the sake of consumption be-
'The following discussion relies on the materialism literature in a
variety of disciplines. Because the characterizations of materialism
in the literature are predominantly unfavorable, this discussion is
necessarily weighted toward the negative. However, it is not the au-
thors' view that all aspects of materialism are inevitably bad. For
instance, the desire for goods on the part of employees may cause
them to work harder or longer, enhancing their incomes and standard
of living. High levels of consumption by consumers can increase the
wealth of business institutions, increasing these firms' ability to make
capital improvements and invest in research and development, which
in turn leads to greater productivity, technological breakthroughs,
and again, higher living standards. In addition, while the literature
assigns to materialists a number of characteristics that are viewed
negatively in contemporary Western society, its bias leads it to be
silent on the potential positive characteristics of materialists such as
a strong motivation to succeed and self-sufficiency.
comes a fever that consumes all the potential energy it
can get access to."
Acquisition as the Pursuit of Happiness. One ofthe
reasons that possessions and their acquisition are so
central to materialists is that they view these as essential
to their satisfaction and well-being in life. Belk (1984,
p. 291) notes that "at the highest levels of materialism
. . . possessions assume a central place in a person's
life and are believed to provide the greatest sources of
satisfaction and dissatisfaction." In a like manner. Ward
and Wackman (1971, p. 426) describe materialism as
"an orientation emphasizing possessions and money
for personal happiness and social progress." The view-
point that pleasure or self-satisfaction is the goal of high
consumption levels is frequently presented in the lit-
erature (e.g., Campbell 1987; Heilbroner 1956; Wachtel
1983). While most individuals are probably involved
to some extent in the pursuit of happiness, it is the pur-
suit of happiness through acquisition rather than
through other means (such as personal relationships,
experiences, or achievements) that distinguishes ma-
terialism.
Possession-defined Success. Materialists tend to judge
their own and others' success by the number and quality
of possessions accumulated. Rassuli and Hollander
(1986, p. 5) describe members of a consumer society as
evaluating others and themselves in terms of their con-
suming life-styles, and in Heilbroner's (1956, p. 23)
analysis, acquisitive, materialistic people value posses-
sions "for the money they cost rather than by the sat-
isfactions they yield." Du Bois (1955) and others have
noted that materialists consider material well-being as
evidence of success and proof of right-mindedness, an
attitude consistent with religious teachings at the time
ofthe Industrial Revolution (Weber [1930] 1958). The
value of possessions stems not only from their ability
to confer status (Veblen [1899] 1953) but from their
ability to project a desired self-image and identify one
as a participant in an imagined perfect life (Campbell
1987). Materialists view themselves as successful to the
extent they can possess products that project these de-
sired images.
The notions concerning materialism expressed in
theoretical writings are also held by lay persons. Four-
nier and Richins (1991) compared popular and theo-
retical notions of materialism and found that the three
themes described above were strongly represented in
ordinary consumers' conceptions of materialism.
Instrumental and Terminal Materialism
Many religious and social critics have condemned
materialism as inherently bad. Rochberg-Halton (1986;
Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1978, 1981),
however, pointed out that possessions can be a positive
influence in one's life and proposed two forms of ma-
terialism based on the purposes of consumption.
MATERIALISM AND ITS MEASUREMENT 305
When objects act "as essential means for discovering
and furthering personal values and goals of life," the
materialism is a potentially harmless form labeled
"instrumental materialism" (Csikszentmihalyi and
Rochberg-Halton 1978, p. 8). When consumption fur-
thers no goal beyond possession itself, the materialism
is regarded as a more dangerous form labeled
"terminal."
Unfortunately, Rochberg-Halton's dichotomy is dif-
ficult to use, and his analysis contains contradictions.
For instance, Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton
(1978, p. 8) note that, in terminal materialism, "we
reduce our ultimate goals to the possession of things,"
yet the authors often mention goals of terminal mate-
rialism beyond possession. They note that, in terminal
materialism, people use possessions to generate the envy
and admiration of others or to achieve status. This sug-
gests that these states (being envied, having status) rather
than the acquisition of possessions constitute the ulti-
mate goals of terminal materialism.
In addition, the analysis of instrumental and terminal
materialism is incomplete and the constructs difficult
to operationalize. For example, it is unclear whether
the terms instrumental and terminal materialism refer
to an individual difference variable (in which case in-
dividuals might be classified as primarily terminal or
instrumental in orientation) or serve simply as descrip-
tions of specific behaviors or motives. Furthermore,
there is little guidance in making determinations of in-
strumental versus terminal materialism. Instrumental
materialism is described as possessing "a sense of di-
rectionality, in which a person's goals themselves may
be cultivated through transactions with the object," its
purpose is "the fuller unfolding of human life," and it
is "context-related." In terminal materialism, "there is
no sense of reciprocal interaction in the relation between
the object and the goal" (Csikszentmihalyi and Roch-
berg-Halton 1981, p. 231). Except in extreme cases, it
may be difficult to determine whether the conditions
for instrumental materialism are being met.
Essentially, the classification as instrumental or ter-
minal appears to rest on a value judgment. Instrumental
materialism "involves the cultivation of objects as es-
sential means for discovering and furthering goals"
(Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981, p. 231),
but only certain kinds of "acceptable" goals are deemed
instrumental. Through his use of examples, it appears
that Rochberg-Halton considers a relationship with an
object to be instrumental if it involves self-actualization,
the development of stronger family or friendship ties,
or the development and expression of aspects of the self
that he approves of. In his analysis, valuing a tool that
allows one to build model planes and fly them in com-
petitions involves instrumental materialism. Owning
an expensive car to impress others and feel better about
one's self or buying a second home to spend more
time with one's mistress and her child represent ter-
minal materialism (Rochberg-Halton 1986, pp. 181,
183-184).
Given the difficulties of operationalizing the instru-
mental/terminal forms and the value judgments inher-
ent in Rochberg-Halton's conception of "good" and
"bad" materialism, the distinction between instrumen-
tal and terminal materialism will not be maintained for
our purposes.
MEASURES OF MATERIALISM AND
RELATED CONSTRUCTS
Empirical research on materialism has been scant
until very recently; however, a variety of materialism
measures have occasionally been mentioned in the lit-
erature. With the exception of Belk's (1984) work, none
of the measures appear to have involved application of
commonly accepted standards for scale development
(Churchill 1979; Nunnally 1978). As practiced in prior
research, approaches to measuring materialism can be
divided into two types: those that infer materialism from
measures of related constructs and those that purport
to measure materialism more directly through the use
of attitude scales. Table 1 describes the measures in
each category.
Materialism has often been assessed by measuring
related constructs and using this to infer the level of
materialism. Dickins and Ferguson (1957), for instance,
assessed materialism by the kinds of wishes expressed
by children and the kinds of jobs they desire when they
grow up.
A few authors have inferred the presence of materi-
alism from scores on early personality-test batteries
(e.g., Burdsal 1975; Justice and Birkman 1972). More
recently Belk (1984, 1985) has developed personality-
trait measures specifically designed to infer the presence
of materialism. His work has been more fruitful than
earlier approaches because he examined the theoretical
linkages between specific personality traits (envy, pos-
sessiveness, and nongenerosity) and materialism and
used psychometric principles to develop his measures.
A limitation of the Belk scales has been inconsistent
and often low reports of scale reliability. In 12 separate
data collections in which reliability was reported in the
literature, coefficient alpha for the individual person-
ality scales ranged from .09 to .81 with a median reli-
ability of .54; a measure summed across the three scales,
frequently used as an indicator of materialism, had a
median reliability of .62.
The most sustained effort to measure materialism
has been carried out by Inglehart (e.g., 1981), who has
attempted to identify postmaterialistic societies in
which individuals emphasize such values as belonging
and self-expression instead of material possessions. In
his surveys, administered primarily in Europe, he lists
12 goals and classifies respondents as possessing ma-
terialist or postmaterialist values by the social goals
they choose as most important. A problem with this
306
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
TABLE 1
MEASURES OF MATERIALISM REPORTED IN EARLIER STUDIES
Study"
Subjects How measured'' Reliability
I. Measures that infer materialism
from related constructs:
Dickins and Ferguson (1957) Ohiidren aged 7-8 and
11-12
Justice and Birkman (1972) Employed adults, prison
inmates
Bengston and Lovejoy (1973) Three-generation families
Burdsal(1975)
Jackson, Ahmed, and Heapy
(1976)
lngiehart(1981)
Belk(1984)
II. Attitude measures of
materialism:
Campbell (1969)
Wackman, Reale, and Ward
(1972)
iVIoschis and Churchill (1978)
De Young (1985-1986)
Richins(1987)
Heslin, Johnson, and Blake
(1989)"=
College students, military
personnel
Adults and college
students in several
cultures
Adults in Europe and the
United States
College students, adults
College students, adults
Adolescents
Adolescents
Adults
Adults
Students
Content analysis of responses to five open-ended
questions: "If you could make three vi/ishes and
they would all come true, what would you wish
for?"
Subscale of the Birkman vocational interest and
attitude survey; materialism inferred from true-
false questions concerning social perceptions
and self-image
Materialism/humanism factor scores based on .78
rankings of 16 values: "finances,"
"possessions," "service"
Materialistic motivations inferred from factor scores
on Cattell's motivational analysis test
Acquisitiveness subscale of the six-dimensional Approximately .80
achievement scale; includes Likert scale,
semantic differential, and adjective checklist
items
Materialist and postmaterialist goals; 12 goals
ranked by importance: "maintain a stable
economy," "try to make our cities and
countryside more beautiful"
Personality traits of envy, nongenerosity, and Subscales .09-.81;
possessiveness; 24 Likert scale items: "I am entire .48-.73
bothered when I see people who buy anything
they want," "I don't like to lend things, even to
good friends," "I tend to hang on to things I
should probably throw out"
Materialism; eight items, forced-choice format: "If
things were such that everybody in the world had
stereophonic record players and champagne,
wars would probably be obsolete"
Materialism; 5 items, Likert scale format: "It's really
true that money can buy happiness"
Materialism; 6 items, adaptation of Wackman et al. 53- 71
(1972)
Nonmaterialism; four items with five-point scales: .78
"do not evaluate everything in dollars," "get
more pleasure from the non-material"
Materialism; six items, two subscales, Likert scale .73, .61
format: "It is important to me to have really nice
things"
Materialism subscale of the spender scales; six .76''
items, Likert scale format
NOTE.Ellipses indicate that data are unavailable.
Where a scale has been used in more than one study, the source with the greatest amount of scale information is reported.
"Entry includes a description of the scale followed by sample items.
"Scale development is in progress.
"Measure is a test-retest correlation; all other reliabilities are Cronbach's alpha.
materialism measure for consumer-behavior research
is that the goals Inglehart lists are distant from most
consumers' daily concerns, cannot be easily affected
by individual action, and are not likely to have large
influences on day-to-day consumption choices. In ad-
dition, this approach does not directly measure the
complex, multidimensional nature of materialism and,
because of its ordinal level of measurement, does not
MATERIALISM AND ITS MEASUREMENT 307
assess individual differences in the strength of material
values.
Finally, some authors have used attitude measures
that assume a more direct assessment of materialism.
These measures usually involve Likert scale response
formats and are described in Table 1. With the excep-
tion of the materialism component of the spender scales
(Heslin, Johnson, and Blake 1989), still in the process
of development, none of these measures has been rig-
orously tested.
MATERIALISM AS A CONSUMER
VALUE
The preceding review shows that materialism has
been measured in a variety of waysby measuring per-
sonality traits, by examining the importance of various
social goals, and by assessing attitudes. All the existing
measures seem to suffer from at least one of two im-
portant limitations. First, many of the measures do not
possess adequate levels of reliability for use in anything
except exploratory research. This is not surprising, per-
haps, given the difficulty of measuring a complex con-
struct like materialism.
Second, the construct validity of many of the mea-
sures has not been established. Because none of the
measures except Belk's have involved the psychometric
procedures of construct definition, scale refinement, and
validity assessment, they are of limited usefulness.
Measures that infer materialism from scores on other
variables such as personality traits or social goals require
further scrutiny. Peter (1981, p. 134) notes that a valid
construct measure should assess "only the character-
istics of the construct it is purported to assess" and
should not be "contaminated with elements from the
domain of other constructs" (see also Nunnally 1978).
Thus, using measures of personality traits to infer ma-
terialism may be inappropriate unless materialism is
itself viewed as a personality trait.
To determine the appropriate measurement approach
for materialism, it is necessary to examine the nature
of the construct itself. As suggested in the literature re-
view, theoretical and popular notions indicate that ma-
terialism represents a mind-set or constellation of at-
titudes regarding the relative importance of acquisition
and possession of objects in one's life. For materialists,
possessions and their acquisition are at the forefront of
personal goals that dictate "ways of life." They value
possessions and their acquisition more highly than most
other matters and activities in life. The organizing
function of acquisition goals among materialists, the
centrality of acquisition-related activities to their lives,
and the prioritizing of possessions vis-a-vis other things
in life suggests that materialism is a value.
Rokeach (1973, p. 5) defined a value as "an enduring
belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of
existence is personally or socially preferable to an op-
posite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of ex-
istence" and, further, that a value "has a transcendental
quality to it, guiding actions, attitudes, judgments, and
comparisons across specific objects and situations and
beyond immediate goals to more ultimate goals" (p.
18). Recall that materialistic consumers are said to make
a religion out of things (Bredemeier and Toby 1960),
they believe that possession of things is the ultimate
source of happiness (Belk 1984), and materialism or-
ganizes their lives to such an extent that it creates a life-
style (Daun 1983). These descriptions fit Rokeach's and
others' characterizations of values. Defining material-
ism as a value is consistent with the notion that mate-
rialism reflects the importance a person places on pos-
sessions and their acquisition as a necessary or desirable
form of conduct to reach desired end states, including
happiness. (For more discussion of the value conception
of materialism, see Fournier and Richins 1991; Richins
and Dawson 1990.) Our conception of materialism,
then, is that it is a value that guides people's choices
and conduct in a variety of situations, including, but
not limited to, consumption arenas. With respect to
consumption, materialism will influence the type and
quantity of goods purchased. Beyond consumption,
materialism will influence the allocation of a variety of
resources, including time. A materialist, for instance,
might choose to work longer hours and earn more
money instead of using that time for leisure activities.
All this suggests that those who place a high value on
material possessions and their acquisition will behave
differently from those who place a lower value on things.
To the extent behavior patterns associated with mate-
rialism are fixed and pervasive, there may be personality
traits associated with materialism (see, e.g., Fromm
1976). Belk's (1984) measures reflect some of the traits
most commonly said to be associated with materialism.
A number of writers have adopted a value conception
of materialism. This is clearest among those who have
dealt with materialism at a cultural level. Mukerji
(1983), Fox and Lears (1983), and others describe ma-
terialism and the culture of consumption as a value
system. Content-analytic studies designed to identify
trends in materialism as reflected in advertising and
popular literature (e.g., Belk 1987; Spiggle 1986) have
spoken of "material values," and consumer behavior
texts frequently describe materialism as a dominant
American value (e.g., Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard
1990; Hawkins, Best, and Coney 1989; Mowen 1990).
In consumer behavior, values most frequently have
been measured with ranking scales such as those de-
veloped by Rokeach (1973) and Kahle (see Kahle,
Beatty, and Homer 1986) in which respondents are pre-
sented with a (sometimes large) set of end states or be-
haviors and asked to rank them according to their im-
portance. Although this approach is useful in identifying
value configurations by revealing the relative impor-
tance an individual or a cultural group places on various
behaviors or end states, ranking methods are limited in
several ways. First, the information gained about any
308
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
one particular value is very superficial. To know that
an individual ranks "warm relationships with others"
fourth in a given set does not reveal very much about
the role these warm relationships play in the person's
life. We do not know why relationships are valued or
the benefits that are expected to accrue from these re-
lationships. Ranking methods also make comparison
across individuals impossible. Of two individuals who
have ranked "warm relationships" fourth, we cannot
tell which one considers warm relationships more im-
portant, nor can we tell whether someone ranking warm
relationships second actually considers them more im-
portant in an absolute sense than someone ranking them
third or fourth.
There are practical problems with ranking methods
as well. Ranked data are ipsative, and the analysis of
ipsative data is fraught with problems (Hicks 1970). In
addition, respondents find it difficult to rank large
numbers of items such as those found on the Rokeach
value batteries. Decreasing the number of items, as with
Kahle et al.'s (1986) approach, can result in the over-
simplification of complex psychological phenomena.
Rating methods are sometimes used to avoid the prob-
lems of ranked-values data (Alwin and Krosnick 1985),
but rating has its own problems, including a large num-
ber of ties among valued end states and behaviors. Rat-
ing data suffers equally with ranking in terms of super-
ficiality of measurement.
To avoid the problems inherent in ranking and rating
procedures, we took a different approach to measuring
materialism. We maintained the conceptualization of
materialism as a value but attempted to obtain greater
depth by measuring beliefs relevant to the value. Thus,
we considered materialism to be a set of centrally held
beliefs about the importance of possessions in one's life
(cf. Rokeach's definition of value) and measured the
three belief domains described above: acquisition cen-
trality, the role of acquisition in happiness, and the role
of possessions in defining success. Our final measure is
not intended to assess all beliefs relevant to material
values but rather those that emerged consistently from
analysis of lay and theoretical notions as described
above.
Propositions Concerning Materialism
The remainder of this article describes development
of a materialism measure that meets the goals described
above. To partially assess the validity of the resulting
scale, it was used to test several propositions concerning
materialism that have been discussed widely in the lit-
erature.
Proposition 1. Materialistic people value acquisi-
tion and the means to acquire possessions more highly
than those low in materialism. They also value posses-
sions and their acquisition more than other life goals
and more than their relationships with other people
(Fromm 1976; Schudson 1984). For most writers, this
emphasis on possessions is the essence of materialism
(e.g., Belk 1984; Bredemeier and Toby 1960; Mukerji
1983).
Proposition 2. Materialistic people are self-centered.
Many have noted that an overemphasis on material
possessions results in selfishness, and Belk (1983) has
reviewed religious and other writings that espouse this
view. An overriding concern with possessions and ac-
quisition for oneself is inherently incompatible with
sharing and giving to others. Wachtel (1983) has ob-
served that self-interest and the pursuit of individual
rather than community goals predominate where afflu-
ence and acquisition are emphasized.
Proposition 3. Materialists will pursue a life of ma-
terial complexity rather than material simplicity. An
emphasis on material possessions is often linked with
positive attitudes toward growth (e.g., Heilbroner 1956;
Inglehart 1981; Looft 1971), a reliance on technology
to solve problems (e.g., Mukerji 1983), and an uncon-
cern for the things of nature or the environment (e.g.,
Lasch 1978; Linden 1979). Voluntary simplicity is the
opposite perspective. It is a life-style of moral respon-
sibility, spiritual growth, and self-actualization that is
manifested in the economic behaviors of low con-
sumption, ecological responsibility, and self-sufficiency
(Elgin 1981; Shama and Wisenblit 1984). These char-
acteristics are so contrary to the spirit of materialism
that Rudmin and Kilbourne (1992) have described vol-
untary simplicity as "deliberately denied materialism."
Thus, there should be a negative relationship between
materialism and voluntary-simplicity behaviors.
Proposition 4. Materialists tend to be less satisfied
than others with their lot in life. Although materialists
expect acquisition to make them happy, many writers
have observed that the lust for goods can be insatiable;
the pleasures of a new acquisition are quickly forgotten
and replaced with a desire for more. This cycle leads
inevitably to dissatisfaction and discontent (Brickman
and Campbell 1971; Scitovszky 1976). Empirical tests
using earlier measures of materialism support this hy-
pothesis (Belk 1984; Dawson 1988; Richins 1987).
SCALE DEVELOPMENT
Item Generation
Item generation for the materialism scale relied on
both popular and theoretical notions of materialism.
In exploratory research, a convenience sample of 11
adult consumers was asked to describe in an open-ended
format the attitudes and values of materialistic people
they knew and of materialistic people in general. The
sample included nearly equal numbers of males and
females and was spread across age and income cate-
gories. Frequently mentioned attitude descriptions were
converted into items. In addition, the researchers con-
structed items to represent the three domains of ma-
MATERIALISM AND ITS MEASUREMENT 309
TABLE 2
DESCRIPTION OF CONSUMER DATA COLLECTIONS AND ASSOCIATED MEASURES
Survey and location
Response rate
Final n Measures
1. Medium-Sized northeastern
city
2. Large western city
3. Large western city
4. Northeastern college town and
northeastern rural area
36.0
33.3
31.3
43.0 and 39.7
144
250
235
86 and 119
48 materialism items; 10 social desirability items (Crowne
and Marlowe 1960)
30 materialism items; trait scales (Belk 1984); spending items
(see text)
30 materialism items; Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale;
desired income
30 materialism items; 13 voluntary simplicity items (Leonard-
Barton 1981); list of values (Kahle et al. 1986); five life-
satisfaction items (Andrews and Withey 1976)
terialism described above. Another source of items was
characterizations of materialistic people in the literature
and those mentioned by social critics. Finally, a few
items were adapted from earlier studies in which ma-
terialism and related constructs were measured (Belk
1984; Heslin et al. 1989; Richins 1987; Wackman,
Reale, and Ward 1972; Yamauchi and Templer 1982).
Items were cast to reflect values and attitudes about
possessions rather than specific behavior or personality
traits. A Likert scale format was used for all items with
response categories of strongly agree, agree, neutral,
disagree, and strongly disagree.
During initial data collection efforts, more than 120
items were generated. Redundant, ambiguous, leading,
and other faulty items were eliminated in initial screen-
ing. Subsequent screening was based on empirical tests
of reliability, validity, and social desirability bias.
Item RefinementStudent Samples
Early data collections for item refinement were un-
dertaken at three major universities in different parts
of the country (the South, the Northeast, and the West).
Reliability, social desirability, and validity assessments
based on student samples have been described elsewhere
(Richins and Dawson 1990) and resulted in a pool of
48 items that were retained for further analysis.
Consumer Samples
Additional item refinement and validation tests were
carried out with more heterogeneous samples obtained
through four consumer mail surveys. All involved ran-
domly chosen samples of households in which initial
mailings were followed by a reminder letter and second
copy of the questionnaire mailed two weeks later. Fur-
ther details of the data collections and associated ques-
tionnaires are shown in Table 2.
Exploratory factor analysis, reliability assessment,
and social desirability tests were performed on data from
the first survey {n = 144). Thirty materialism items were
retained as a result of these analyses. Factor analysis
and additional reliability assessments were performed
for these 30 items using data from the later data col-
lections (all with sample sizes greater than 200; see Table
2). These analyses resulted in a scale containing 18 items
that behaved consistently across the samples and possess
adequate reliability. The final set of items is shown in
Table 3.
Structure of the Measure
Exploratory factor analysis from the first survey sug-
gested a scale with three moderately correlated factors.
To show the relationships among scale items. Table 3
provides the pattern matrix from the principal com-
ponents analysis (with oblique rotation) with data from
survey 2. The matrix is typical of those obtained from
all data collections, and the three factors correspond to
the elements of materialism noted in construct defini-
tion. The first factor (labeled "success") represents the
use of possessions as an indicator of success in life,
which corresponds to the third domain of materialism
described in the literature review. The second factor
("centrality") concerns the importance of acquisition
and possession generally, and the third ("happiness")
concerns the perception that possessions are needed for
happiness. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed
with the data from surveys 2, 3, and 4. Although the
chi-square statistics were significant in the three anal-
yses, other indicators suggested an acceptable fit of the
model. Adjusted goodness-of-fit indices ranged from .86
to .88, and in every analysis the i-values for maximum
likelihood estimates all exceeded 5.0.
Because the latent constructs were moderately or
highly correlated in all analyses (phi coefficients
ranged from .39 to .79), the chi-square for a single
factor model was compared with chi-square for the
three factor model. The difference in chi-square test
310
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
TABLE 3
EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANAYLSIS OF MATERIALISM ITEMS
Factor
Item
1
Success:
I admire people who own expensive homes,
cars, and clothes. .70
Some of the most important achievements
in life include acquiring material
possessions. .69
I don't place much emphasis on the amount
of material objects people own as a sign
of success.* .68
The things I own say a lot about how well
I'm doing in life. .58
I like to own things that impress people. .56
I don't pay much attention to the material
objects other people own* - . 43
Centrality:
I usually buy only the things I need.* - . 78
I try to keep my life simple, as far as
possessions are concerned.* -. 62
The things I own aren't all that important to
me.* - . 60
I enjoy spending money on things that
aren't practical. .60
Buying things gives me a lot of pleasure. .54
I like a lot of luxury in my life. .52
I put less emphasis on material things than
most people I know.* - . 49
Happiness:
I have all the things I really need to enjoy
life.* - . 80
My life would be better if I owned certain
things I don't have. .65
I wouldn't be any happier if I owned nicer
things.* -. 58
I'd be happier if I could afford to buy more
things. .58
It sometimes bothers me quite a bit that I
can't afford to buy all the things I'd like. .37 .55
NOTE.Only loadings greater than .35 are shown. An asterisk indicates reverse
scored items. A five-point Likert scale response format was used.
Reliability
Coefficient alpha was calculated separately for the
items comprising the three factors and for the 18 items
as a single scale. The seven centrality items produced
alpha coefficients between .71 and .75 in the latter three
surveys. For the six-item success subscale alpha ranged
from .74 to .78, and for the five happiness items, alpha
was between .73 and .83. When combined into a single
scale, alpha for the 18 items varied between .80 to .88.
Test-retest reliability (three-week interval) was cal-
culated on data from a sample of 58 students at an urban
university. The reliability correlations were .82, .86, and
.82 for the centrality, happiness, and success subscales,
respectively, and .87 for the combined scale.
Social Desirability
While materialism may be more socially acceptable
today than in some past eras, because of recent media
attention to the negative aspects of materialism we con-
sidered it important to test the measure for susceptibility
to social desirability bias. Social desirability was mea-
sured in the first consumer data collection with 10 items
from the Marlowe-Crowne scale (Crowne and Marlowe
1960). These items were chosen from the larger scale
because they have been shown to possess greater sen-
sitivity than other items and are appropriately keyed
for current standards of desirable behavior (Ballard,
Crino, and Rubenfeld 1988). Correlations with the so-
cial desirability measure were .12, .03, and .06 for
the centrality, happiness, and success subscales, re-
spectively, and -. 09 for the combined scale. The low
correlations suggest that social desirability bias was not
a problem for these measures.
Descriptive Statistics
The distributions for the overall materialism measure
and its three components were approximately normal
was significant in tests of all three data sets, indicating
that the three-factor model is superior in fitting the
data.
While confirmatory factor analysis served to explicate
the three hypothesized manifestations of the underlying
construct, the three factors were summed for purposes
of validation. This approach was followed because
analyses showed that the three factors normally act in
concert with respect to external variables. Carver (1989)
has noted that, in these situations, using the summed
index instead of subscales is appropriate and advanta-
geous in terms of parsimony and clarity of communi-
cation.^
^Carver (1989) has discussed at length the appropriateness of com-
bining component scores into a summed measure representing a latent
construct and notes that, in doing so, researchers have assumed either
that the underlying construct is assessed indirectly by measures of its
various manifestations (the latent variable approach) or that the con-
struct is something more than the sum of its component parts (the
synergistic approach). For purposes of the materialism measure, we
make the former assumptionthat the three subscales are manifes-
tations of materialism and the latent variable approach is thus ap-
propriate. Carver describes the advantages of summing the compo-
nents in such a case and discusses the patterns of results that justify
summed vs. separate component analysis. In the research reported
here, all hypotheses were investigated using both the summed scale
and the component scales. On average, the summed multidimensional
index relates to the diverse constructs in the hypothesis tests better
than does any one component dimension. In such cases, "the higher
level information (i.e., the consistent relation of the multifaceted
[summed] construct to many outcome variables) is more important
than the lower level [individual subscale] information," and the use
of the summed construct measure instead of individual subscales is
preferred (Carver 1989, p. 580). For this reason, summed scale results
are presented here. Results of" hypothesis tests at the subscale level
are available from the authors.
MATERIALISM AND ITS MEASUREMENT 311
in all surveys (largest value for skew = .67; largest value
for kurtosis = 1.01). Means, standard deviations, and
ranges for surveys 2, 3, and 4 are presented in Table 4.
The relationships between demographics and the
materialism measures were assessed. With the exception
of age, all correlations were quite low and no consistent
patterns emerged. For the four materialism measures
(three components plus the overall scale) in the three
later data collections, the median point biserial corre-
lations with sex and with marital status were .05 and
.01, respectively. Median correlations for household
size, education, and income were .02, -. 06, and .04.
For age, however, all correlations except one were neg-
ative; the median correlation was -. 19. This result is
consistent with the notion that materialism declines af-
ter middle age (see Belk 1985).
SCALE VALIDATION
Earlier in the article, four propositions concerning
materialism were described. In validity assessment,
multiple tests were performed for each proposition.
Materialists and the Value of Acquisition
According to theorists, materialistic people value ac-
quisition and the means to acquire possessions more
highly than those low in materialism. In addition, they
value acquisition more than other life goals. Three
analyses were carried out to examine these ideas.
Respondents in survey 3 were asked in an open-ended
format to indicate the level of annual household income
that "would satisfy your needs." People who desire a
lot of possessions will need more money to acquire those
possessions and thus are expected to report a higher
desired level of income. For purposes of analysis, re-
spondents were divided into terciles based on their ma-
terialism scores; the desired income level of respondents
in the top {n = 76) and bottom ( = 71) terciles were
compared. Respondents high in materialism felt they
needed significantly more income {X = $65,974) than
those low in materialism [X = $44,761; t = 3.65, df
= 120.1, p<.001).5
A second test of the importance of the means to ac-
quire was carried out using Kahle's List of Values (LOV)
scale (Kahle et al. 1986). Respondents in survey 4 were
asked to read the nine values in a revised version of the
scale and then to rank the four values that were most
important to them. Respondents were divided into ter-
ciles based on their materialism scores and the per-
centage of respondents including each value in their
top three choices was examined. Table 5 shows per-
TABLE 4
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS FOR THE MATERIALISM SCALE AND
ITS COMPONENTS
Scale
Centrality component:
Survey 2
Survey 3
Survey 4
Happiness component:
Survey 2
Survey 3
Survey 4
Success component:
Survey 2
Survey 3
Survey 4
Overall scale:
Survey 2
Survey 3
Survey 4
Mean
19.8
19.3
19.3
13.3
13.1
12.8
14.7
14.3
13.8
47.9
46.7
45.9
SD
4.2
4.0
4.0
4.2
3.5
4.1
3.9
3.7
4.1
10.2
8.3
9.8
Range
9-33
9-32
9-31
5-25
5-22
5-25
6-24
6-26
6-30
23-80
20-71
23-84
Skew
.20
.12
-. 07
.14
.23
.37
.06
.52
.67
.16
.08
.45
Kurtosis
.44
-.13
.14
-. 60
-. 24
-. 26
-. 38
.49
1.01
.00
.39
.83
centages for respondents in the top ( = 71) and bottom
( = 68) terciles."*
As expected, respondents higher in materialism were
more likely to value "financial security" and less likely
to value "warm relationships with others" than respon-
dents low in materialism {p < .01). They were also less
likely to choose "a sense of accomplishment" as an im-
portant goal {p < .01).
Finally, the importance materialists place on financial
matters relative to other goals was examined. Table 5
shows the median ranking for values in the LOV scale.
For respondents low in materialism, four values were
rated as more important than "financial security": self-
respect, warm relationships, family security, and a sense
of accomplishment. For those high in materialism, only
self-respect and family security were rated as more im-
portant; warm relationships were approximately tied in
importance with financial security. This analysis sup-
ports the belief that materialists tend to value the means
to acquire (financial security) more highly than some
of the life goals valued by those low in materialism.
However, the contentions of Fromm (1976) and others
that materialists sacrifice personal relationships in their
pursuit of wealth and possessions were not supported.
Respondents low in materialism do appear to place
considerably more importance on interpersonal rela-
tionships than on financial security, but high-materi-
alism respondents gave interpersonal relationships
equal footing with financial concerns.
Two separate tests, one concerning values and the
other concerning desired income, indicate that the ma-
terialism scale effectively identifies consumers who
'The homogeneity of variance assumption was not met for this
test, necessitating the use of separate variance estimates and resulting
in a noninteger value for degrees of freedom.
"Results are similar when comparing those who did and did not
include a value in their top/our choices except that the significance
level declines to .05 for significant comparisons.
312
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
TABLE 5
PERCENT INCLUDING A VALUE IN THEIR TOP THREE CHOICES AND MEDIAN RANKING
FOR RESPONDENTS HIGH AND LOW IN MATERIALISM
Goal
High materialism
(n = 71)
Percent
choosing
46.5
45.1
22.5
54.9
56.3
35.2
16.9
12.7
9.9
Median"
4
4
5
3
3
5
Low materialism
(n = 68)
Percent
choosing
22.1
64.7
45.6
63.2
50.0
27.9
13.2
7.4
5.9
Median'
5
3
4
2
3
5
z-tes
3.02
-2. 32
-2. 88
- . 99
.74
.93
.61
1.04
.87
Financial security
Warm relationships with others
Sense of accomplishment
Self-respect
Famiiy security
Seif-fulfiliment
Fun and enjoyment In life
Being weil-respected
Sense of belonging
'Respondents ranked their four most important goals; unranked goals were assigned a rank of five; the median is not reported for qoals chosen bv less than 30
percent of respondents (indicated by ellipses). K M y OU
"p< .01.
highly value the means to acquire. However, because
the analysis of values with ranked data suffers from
limitations mentioned earlier, future investigations into
the links between materialism and values would benefit
from the use of more sensitive values measures.
Materialism and Self-Centeredness
One of the common statements about materialists is
that they are self-centered and unconcerned about oth-
ers. Three tests of this proposition were carried out. In
survey 2, respondents were asked to assume they had
been unexpectedly given $20,000. They were then given
a list of six ways in which the money could be spent,
plus an "other" category. Three versions of the ques-
tionnaire were administered in a split-ballot procedure,
the only difference among the questionnaires being the
order of listing of the spending categories. Spending
categories were developed from pretests in which adult
respondents were asked in an open-ended format how
they would spend an unexpected gift of $20,000.
For purposes of analyses, respondents were again di-
vided into terciles based on their materialism scores;
Table 6 shows spending intentions for respondents in
the top and bottom terciles. On average, respondents
high in materialism said they would spend three times
as much on things for themselves as would low-mate-
rialism respondents {p < .001), would contribute less
than half of what low materialists would to charitable
or church organizations {p < .001), and would give less
than half as much to friends and family {p < .01). They
also would spend less on travel {p < .05).
A second test of the relationship between materialism
and selfishness comes from an item in the voluntary
simplicity life-style measure used in survey 4. (The re-
lationship between materialism and voluntary simplic-
ity is more fully examined below.) The scale contains
an item asking how often respondents contribute to
ecological or conservation organizations. The correla-
tion between this item and the materialism scale was
-.21 (p<. 01).
The third assessment of selfishness was the measure
of nongenerosity developed by Belk (1984) administered
in survey 2. This scale measures nongenerosity with
possessions and other nonmonetary resources and con-
tains items such as "I don't like to lend things, even to
good friends" and "I enjoy having guests stay in my
home" (reverse scored). The correlation between the
materialism scale and the nongenerosity scale (alpha
= .63) was .25 {p < .001).
These analyses support the hypothesis that materi-
alists prefer to retain their resources for their own use
and are less willing than others to share what they have,
both in terms of their money (as measured by the
spending analysis) and their possessions (as evidenced
by the correlation with the nongenerosity scale). This
reluctance to share extends to those with whom they
have close social ties (friends and family) and more so-
cially distant entities such as charitable and ecological
organizations.
Materialism and Voluntary Simplicity
Although Rudmin and Kilbourne (1992) have noted
that "the essential feature of voluntary simplicity is not
the manifest behavior, but the underlying values and
beliefs which . . . motivate that behavior," Leonard-
Barton (1981) posits that the values of voluntary sim-
plicity are likely to result in certain kinds of behaviors,
which she includes in the voluntary-simplicity life-style
scale. To assess the relationship between materialism
and voluntary simplicity, a shorter (13-item) version of
MATERIALISM AND ITS MEASUREMENT 313
TABLE 6
AMOUNT INTENDED TO BE SPENT IN DIFFERENT CATEGORIES
BY RESPONDENTS HIGH AND LOW IN MATERIALISM
Spending category
Buy things 1 want or need
Give to church organization
or charity
Give or lend to friends or
relatives
Travel
Pay off debts
Savings or investments
Other
High
nnaterialism
($)
{n = 91)
3,445
733
1,089
2,090
4,281
7,413
948
Low
materiaiism
($)
{n = 85)
1,106
1,782
2,631
3,015
3,271
7,471
724
f
5.38***
-3.79***
-3.08**
-2.08*
1.41
- . 07
.27
< .05.
p< .01.
the scale described by Leonard-Barton, with some re-
vision to item wording and response categories, was
administered in survey 4. In analysis, the three-con-
struct structure for the scale proposed by Cowles and
Crosby (1986) was used because this structure resulted
in better prediction than the six-factor structure pro-
posed by Leonard-Barton. Cowles and Crosby labeled
their constructs "material simplicity" (which involves
buying used goods and relying on bicycles instead of
automobiles for transportation), "self-determination"
(making rather than buying items and attempting to
do home repairs oneself), and "ecological awareness"
(recycling and contributing to ecological organi-
zations).
Rudmin and Kilbourne have distinguished between
voluntary simplicity, reflecting underlying values, and
involuntary simplicity that results from inadequate re-
sources (income) to engage in a more complex life-style.
To avoid confounding these two constructs, partial cor-
relations controlling for income were used when as-
sessing the relationship between materialism and the
voluntary simplicity indices for material simplicity, self-
determination, and ecological awareness; resulting par-
tial correlations were - . 18, - . 15, and -.24 for the three
respective indices. The partial correlation when all 13
items are summed was -.28 (p < .01 for all partial
correlations).
The relationship between materialism and the volun-
tary simplicity life-style scale, while significant, is not es-
pecially strong. This may be due to weaknesses of the
voluntary simplicity scale itself. Like many other behav-
iors, some of those included in the scale may be deter-
mined as much by one's situation as by one's values or
attitudes (e.g., bike to work; grow vegetables). A second
limitation of the scale is its low reliability (Cronbach's
alpha for the scale and subscales were between .48 and
.62).' Despite these limitations, a significant relationship
between voluntary-simplicity life-style and materialism
did emerge, supporting the contentions of Rudmin and
Kilbourne (1992) and others.
Materialism and Satisfaction
Philosophers have frequently warned that the continual
pursuit of goods can lead only to dissatisfaction. The re-
lationship between materialism and satisfaction was mea-
sured in different ways in the three validation surveys. In
survey 4, respondents completed measures of satisfaction
with life as a whole, amount of fun, family life, income
or standard of living, and relationships with friends using
the delighted-terdble response scale described by Andrews
and Withey (1976). Materialism was negatively related to
satisfaction in all the aspects of life measured. The rela-
tionship was strongest for satisfaction with income or
standard of living {r = -.39) and weakest for satisfaction
with family life (r = .17). Correlations for satisfaction
with life as a whole, fun, and friends were -.32, -.34,
and - .31, respectively (all p < .01).
Envy involves a coveting of what another has and,
frequently, a resentment of the person who possesses
the desired objects (see Belk 1984). As such, it implies
a dissatisfaction with one's own possessions and lot in
life. Survey 2 contained a measure of envy (Belk 1984;
alpha = .52); the correlation between materialism and
envy was .47 (p < .001).
As a final measure of satisfaction, the Rosenberg
(1965) self-esteem scale was included in survey 3 (alpha
= .81). Self-esteem has often been described as an eval-
uation of the self, an assessment of how good or bad
one is (e.g., Epstein 1980). The correlation between
materialism and self-esteem was -.12 (p < .05).
According to critics, the quest for happiness through
possessions is destined to result in dissatisfaction (e.g.,
Leiss 1976). A number of authors have suggested that
materialism and the pursuit of possessions is not the
cause but the result of dissatisfaction, that the desire to
possess and consume stems from insecurities or deeper
dissatisfactions with one's self and one's life (e.g., Braun
and Wicklund 1989; Cushman 1990; Fromm 1976;
Wachtel 1983). While a thorough research program
would be necessary to determine the validity of these
propositions, the data here suggest that materialists are
more likely to be dissatisfied with their circumstances
than with themselves. However, more sensitive mea-
sures of self-concept are necessary to adequately assess
the relationship between self variables and materialism.
DISCUSSION
The research program described here was undertaken
to develop a measure of material values that represents
'Prior research has not reported coefficients alpha for the voluntary
simplicity scale.
314
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
the construct of materialism as described in the social
sciences literature and in common usage. The resulting
scale measures three correlated aspects of materialism:
acquisition centrality, the role of acquisition in the pur-
suit of happiness, and the role of possessions in defining
success. The scale possesses acceptable reliability, and
preliminary assessments of scale validity were suc-
cessful.
The search for a measure of materialism led us to the
study of values, and one contribution of this research
is the recognition that values can and sometimes should
be measured in ways other than with traditional ranking
procedures. An examination of published consumer re-
search suggests that the study of values has been some-
what neglected. Helgeson et al. (1984) examined con-
sumer-behavior studies from 1950 through 1981 and
found that only 0.8 percent of the studies concerned
values or beliefs. Our own informal review of the more
recent literature (1984-1991) also revealed little re-
search on values. Excluding studies of materialism, only
seven articles in the Journal of Consumer Research and
the Association for Consumer Research proceedings
dealt with consumer values, and the main focus of four
of these was to examine revised lists of values from the
ranking procedures used by Rokeach (e.g., Kahle et al.
1986; Munson and McQuarrie 1988) rather than to ad-
dress substantive issues concerning consumer values.
Instead of revising the Rokeach scales, it might be ap-
propriate at this time to develop entirely different value
measures more suited to the usual application of indi-
vidual difference variables in consumer behavior.
In consumer-behavior research, we usually wish to
measure the intensity of a variable using a metric scale
and multiple items so that we can establish reliability,
compare individuals or groups, and assess associations
with other variables. This is difficult to accomplish with
rank data. Furthermore, values are complex phenom-
ena, and the use of complex measures is required. It is
no more reasonable to measure the value of "warm re-
lationships with others" with a single item than it is to
measure attitudes toward religion with a single question
on a survey. Single-item measures are also unsatisfac-
tory from a reliability perspective (Nunnally 1978). It
is hoped that this research will encourage others to ex-
tend the multiple-item measurement philosophy to ad-
ditional values important in the study of consumer be-
havior.
We also hope that our work will spawn more research
on materialism, including investigations into its ante-
cedents and consequences. Such research should in-
vestigate the potential positive effects of materialism
(both personal and economic) as well as the negative
ones more frequently mentioned in the literature. Other
research can investigate the relationship between ma-
terial values and marketing stimuli such as advertising
(e.g., Pollay 1984), store displays, and product char-
acteristics. Finally, additional research may seek to
broaden the conceptualization of materialism beyond
that represented here. For instance, measures that assess
the extent to which individuals use material possessions
to assist in defining the self or as an expression of group
membership and belonging will allow researchers to ex-
amine more broadly consumers' relationships with ma-
terial objects.
[Received August 1991. Revised February 1992.]
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