Materialism, affective states, and life satisfaction: case of Croatia

Materialism is generally considered a negative value, trait or behavior, being associated
with greed, shallowness and lack of spiritual values. Collins English Dictionary defines
materialism as “interest in and desire for money, possessions, etc., rather than spiritual
or ethical values” (“Materialism” 2015]). Studied within various disciplines materialism is defined from different perspectives:
as a way of life, a value orientation, a cultural system, a personality trait, a second
order value, an aspiration (Bindah and Othman 2011]). There are two main approaches to materialism in the contemporary empirical research.
One that views materialism as the personality trait and other that assumes that materialism
should be treated as a part of personal value system.

Belk (1985]) relates materialism to the personality traits of “possessiveness (the inclination and tendency to retain control or ownership of one’s possessions), non-generosity (an unwillingness to give possessions to or share possessions with others) and envy (displeasure and ill will at the superiority of another person in happiness, success,
reputation, or the possession of anything desirable)”. Fourth trait, preservation (a tendency to make experience tangible through souvenirs and photographs), was added later, due to cross-cultural findings on materialism (Ger and Belk 1996]). Belk (1984a], pp 291) defines materialism as “the importance a person attaches to material possessions
and the belief that certain possessions are the primary source of happiness”. At the
highest levels of materialism, possessions take a central place in person’s life and
are believed to provide the greatest sources of satisfaction (Belk 1984b]).

Another widely accepted approach to materialism suggest that materialism can be viewed
as a value that consumers gives to possessions and should be studied within the context
of the larger value systems that individuals hold (Richins and Dawson 1990]; Kasser and Ryan 1996]; Burroughs and Rindfleisch 2002]). Richins and Dawson (1992], pp 308) define materialism as a “value that emphasis importance of possessions and
material goods in person’s life toward achieving life goals or desired states”.

Implementing the basic concept of materialism as multi-faceted construct which includes
the beliefs that possessions lead to happiness, that success can be judged by things
people own, and that possessions are central in person’s life, Richins and Dawson
(1992]) constructed the Material Values Scale (MVS). The measure captures three dimensions
of materialism: Success (“I like to own things that impress people.”), Centrality (“I enjoy spending money on things that aren’t practical.”), and Happiness (“My life would be better if I owned certain things I don’t have.”). A review of published studies and analysis of fifteen data sets revealed that the
MVS performs well in terms of reliability and empirical usefulness, but the dimensional
structure proposed by authors is not always evident in the data (Richins 2004]). In line with that, authors emphasized the need for cross-national validation of
MVS as it was shown not to perform equally across different national samples. Specifically,
it was found to have different factor structure in the French and Russian samples
(Griffin et al. 2004]) as well as in the German one (Müller et al. 2013]).

Materialism and well being

Materialism has drawn attention of scholars in the field of positive psychology because
of its possible negative effects on individual’s well-being. In many studies conducted
in different countries materialism was found to be associated with dissatisfaction
with life and lower subjective well-being (Belk 1984b], 1985]; Dawson and Bamossy 1991]; Richins and Dawson 1992]; Wright and Larsen 1993]; Keng et al. 2000]; Roberts et al. 2005]; Ditmar et al. 2014). Moreover, materialism was found to be positively related to
psychological illnesses such are paranoia and depression (Kasser and Ryan 1993]). Regarding personal characteristics, materialistic persons were found to be socially
anxious, self-conscious, and conforming (Schroeder and Dugal 1995]), often concerned about appearances, and motivated by the extrinsic goals (Kasser
and Ahuvia 2002]). Materialism was also found to be related to anti-social behaviours such as conflicts
between spouses (Paduska 1992]) and tendency to engage in shoplifting (Larsen et al. 1999]).

There are several interpretations of such findings. Some authors claim that materialists
use material goods as compensation for some personal weaknesses like a low self-esteem
(Chatterjee and Farkas 1992]) or need for security and connectedness to others (Kasser et al. 1995]). Other authors suggest that materialists set unrealistically high goals, so that
the discrepancy between these expectations and actual achievement makes them unhappy
(Sirgy 1998]; Oishi et al. 1999]). Such interpretation is in line with findings that even after substantial improvement
of personal wealth, materialistic persons did not show an increase in subjective well-being
(Ryan et al. 1999]; Sheldon and Kasser 1998]). As defined by Kasser and Ryan (1996]) materialistic values include desire to be wealthy, to have possessions, to build
a certain self-image, but also to be attractive, popular and well known. Such desires
are not easy to achieve and materialistic people need to invest time and effort to
accomplish their goals. In a recent study Kasser et al. (2014]) experimentally manipulated materialism orientations in order to change well-being
and found out that well-being increased as people placed less importance on materialistic
values and goals. Conversely, as people increased the relative importance of materialistic
values, well-being was found to decrease over time (Kasser et al. 2014]). In series of studies, Solberg et al. (2004]) provided several explanations for negative relation between materialism and well-being.
First, they found that the relation could be partially explained by a confounding
factor: neuroticism. Also, they proved that materialists tend to consider themselves
less happy because of their poor social relations, and their tendency to work toward
materialistic yet less enjoyable and harder-to-achieve goals.

Mentioned studies dominantly used life satisfaction as a measure of well-being. However,
subjective well-being is multifaceted construct that consists of both cognitive and
affective aspects. While cognitive component of well-being is usually conceptualized
as life satisfaction, affective component reflect frequency of pleasant and unpleasant
emotions (Diener 2006]). In the meta-analysis of the relationships between materialism and personal well-being
Dittmar et al. (2014]) reported that materialism is associated with variety of well-being constructs, including
one’s cognitive appraisals of overall life satisfaction as well as emotional appraisals
of happiness and experiences of positive and negative emotions. However, the strength
of associations between materialism and well-being differed for different constructs
of well-being, although majority of associations were negative. A few studies so far
surveyed experienced emotions (i.e. positive and negative affects) and their association
with level of materialism (Christopher and Schlenker 2004]; Christopher et al. 2009]; Hudders and Pandelaere 2012]). Most of these researchers agree that materialists experience more negative affect.
However, the relation between materialism and positive affect states is not so clear,
and except Christopher and Schlenker (2004]) who found a negative impact of materialism on positive affect, the majority of studies
found weak or non-significant relationships between materialism and positive affect.

When examining the relationships between materialism and well-being, it should be
kept in mind that different economic and cultural circumstances can influence the
meaning of materialism and values toward possessions and consumption within a society.
As argued by Delhey (2010], p 81) “happiness tends to be pretty materialist in poorer places and more post-materialist
in richer ones”. Comparing the data of 48 countries, the author showed that income
and possessions are more important pillars for personal quality of life in poorer
than in richer countries.

Why Croatia?

So far, materialism as a value orientation was not systematically researched in Croatia.
In the past it has been a society influenced by traditional and collectivist values
placing emphasis on the family and community, rather than the individual (Radin 2002]; Jankovic and Dittmar 2006]). Croatia’s recent history has been marked by three politically important facts:
the fall of communism (the first free elections in 1990), the declaration of independence
from Yugoslavia (1991), and the Homeland War (1991–1995). Thus, in the relatively
short time span Croatia has undergone a ‘triple transition’ from a single party system
to a pluralist democracy, from a planned to a free market economy and from war to
peace. In the context of war, the early years of transition were marked by hyperinflation,
rising unemployment, widespread grey and black economy, fall in economic output and
an increase of income inequality. Transitional problems, coupled with war-related
problems, caused the country to experience a slower democratization process than many
other post-communist countries (Eurofound 2007]). Although member of EU since 2013, Croatian society is still experiencing the economic
hardship and at the same time is exposed to global consumerism. In line with shortly
reviewed research on materialism and well-being, we found important to explore these
relationships in Croatian society that is still experiencing the slow economic growth.
To the best of our knowledge, this was the first attempt to examine materialism, as
the value that emphasis importance of possessions, on the nationally representative
sample and to examine its relationships with well-being of Croatian citizens. In addition
we intended to explore these relationships by assessing various components of the
subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative affects).

The first goal of the present study was to translate MVS and to analyze the structure
of the scale on the nationally representative sample of Croatian citizens. The basic
question was whether the factor structure obtained on Croatian data corresponds to
the three-factor model of Happiness, Success, and Centrality. Based on the results
of other studies (Griffin et al. 2004]; Müller et al. 2013]) we hypothesized that if there was discrepancy between original three-factor-model
of MVS and obtained data, it would be found for factors of Centrality and Success,
as those factors in other research showed the lack of replication.

The second goal was to explore the relationships between materialism and affective
(i.e., Positive and Negative Affect) and cognitive components (i.e. Life satisfaction)
of subjective well-being. Our hypothesis was that materialism would be negatively
associated with life satisfaction and experiences of positive affect, and positively
with experiences of negative affect.