Materialism, narcissism and the attitude towards conspicuous consumption
Materialism, narcissism and the attitude towards conspicuous consumption

Summary/Abstract: Conspicuous consumption (purchase of expensive goods and services in order to visibly demonstrate buying power) is a frequent and widely spread type of consumer behavior. Besides its economic dimension, conspicuous consumption certainly also has its – for now under studied – psychological dimension. So far, it has been reported that positive attitude towards conspicuous consumption is associated with conformity, high esteem of authority, social anxiety, Machiavellism, and ruthless self-advancement. In this study, using a sample of 272 high school students (aged 16–18) we studied predictive relationship between narcissism and materialism, and the attitude towards conspicuous consumption. The data indicated that materialism was a significant predictor of the attitude towards conspicuous consumption, quite in line with some previous research. In spite of a significant correlation between narcissism and materialism, narcissism was not a significant predictor of the attitude towards conspicuous consumption. Thus, this study has widened nomological network of the attitude towards conspicuous consumption and clearly delineated two seemingly similar psychological constructs: materialism and the attitude towards conspicuous consumption.

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