“We want the world and we want it now”: Materialism, time perspectives and problem spending tendency of Chinese

Abstract

Chinese consumers' spending has been expanding rapidly in the past decade, and along with it household and credit card debt. The present research collected evidence to triangulate the contention that materialism is positively related with Chinese's problem spending tendency (PST), and that present-and future-time perspectives interact systematically with materialism to affect PST. A survey of the general population in Macao, China (Study 1; N=239) confirmed that materialism was positively correlated with PST. An interaction between materialism and present-timeperspective intensified the relationship, whereas an interaction with future-timeperspective weakened the relationship. Another survey with a sample of university students (Study 2; N=223) again found positive relationships among PST, materialism, and present-time-perspective, as measured by temporal discount rate.But further exploration showed that PST was only related with temporal discounting among high materialists, but not among low materialists. Study 3 experimentally examined the causal effects of materialism and future-time-perspective on PST.When being primed of an orientation towards materialism (n=33), the participants' planned consumption doubled that of the control group (n=31). A future-timeperspective prime interacted with materialism prime and put a "damper" on participants' planned spending (n=29), compared to their counterparts who were not primed of such a time perspective.

Slow Fashion Is Positively Linked to Consumers’ Well-Being: Evidence from an Online Questionnaire Study in China

“…Instead, our findings suggest that fashion items that consumers typically spend a lot of money on do not necessarily make them happier, nor do they contribute to consumers' senses of achievement, meaning and engagement. This is particularly the case when we consider the negative relationship that we found between fast fashion and well-being, which corroborates previous findings on compulsive buying [35][36][37][38] and those in the materialism paradigm [39][40][41][42]45].…”

“…Research on compulsive buying disorder, a type of behavioural addiction that is characterised by obsessive cognition about shopping and excessive buying behaviour that often leads to distress and/or impairment [33], show that compulsive buying behaviour often takes the form of individuals purchasing fashion items [34], and a strong fashion interest is an important predictor of the disorder [35,36]. Similarly, researchers working in the materialism paradigm show that fashion consciousness and fashion consumption are closely related to conspicuous consumption and status buying [37][38][39], and as a result could lead to overspending and debts [40].…”

Determinants of Frugal Behavior: The Influences of Consciousness for Sustainable Consumption, Materialism, and the Consideration of Future Consequences

“…Lastly, following research on materialism and consumption behavior highlighting how materialistic people place greater importance on the acquisition of material goods as a means of achieving life goals and increasing subjective well-being (Richins and Dawson, 1992;Goldsmith and Flynn, 2015), materialism is linked to a present time perspective and is positively associated with excessive and compulsive consumption (Ku et al, 2018;Unger et al, 2018). In contrast, frugality and frugal behavior are strongly and positively associated with a future time perspective but are not related to a present time perspective (Dholakia et al, 2016).…”

The Impact of a Materialistic Value Orientation on Well-Being

“…There is some tentative evidence that those higher in MVO focus even more on the present at the expense of the future than those low in MVO: In a hypothetical consumer situation, where participants gained goods of higher value if they waited longer before receiving them, participants who were higher in MVO required considerably higher values of goods later to consider the delay worthwhile (Dittmar & Bond, 2010). Time perspectives (present and future) also appear to play a critical role in determining MVO's effects on problematic spending behaviors, where a focus on future time perspectives mitigates some of the negative effects of MVO on problematic spending behaviors (Ku, Wu, Lao, & Lam, 2016). Thus the link between MVO and time perspectives may be worth investigating further because it may be a potential intervention target for reducing MVO's impact on the environment.…”