ABSTRACT
Materialism is a strong guiding sentiment or value that broadly reflects the importance an individual assigns to possessions, belongings and wealth. There are different views on materialism in consumer research, mainly funnelling into two broad categories of materialism either as a personality trait or a consumer value. Materialism's negative effects spread to the consumer's workplace as well, as materialistic values tend to be associated with lower work ethics, lower work-related well-being and enhanced work–family conflict. The consumer's possessions reflect the materialistic values behind them as a highly materialistic consumer tends to prefer possessions that are high in prestige and status, are publicly consumed, are expensive, and are associated with important others. Egocentric and material purchases have a negative impact on happiness as consumers buy joyless material goods that provide comfort but fail to provide pleasure. Materialism resides in psychological aspects of the consumer relating to motives, values and lifestyle.
