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Does Socioeconomic Status Matter? Materialism and Self-Esteem: Longitudinal Evidence from China

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Abstract

While dialogue regarding the materialism–self-esteem relation continues, the longitudinal empirical evidence is limited. More importantly, the boundary conditions of this relation have received scant attention. Given individual differences in the landscape of resources, we tracked participants for 2 years to examine the effect of materialism on their self-esteem in the long run as well as the moderating role of socioeconomic status (SES) in the focal relation. A total of 430 Chinese undergraduates responded to questionnaires that assessed our core variables in three waves. Cross-lagged models were analyzed using structural equation modeling and model comparisons. The results revealed that materialism decreased self-esteem longitudinally, and this detrimental effect was contingent on the availability of personal resources. Specifically, materialism exerts little influence on self-esteem among people with high SES.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71702108, No. 31571152); and the National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 13BSH055).

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  1. Rong Wang and Hongyun Liu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Management, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

    Rong Wang

  2. Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Hongyun Liu & Jiang Jiang

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Correspondence to Jiang Jiang.

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Wang, R., Liu, H. & Jiang, J. Does Socioeconomic Status Matter? Materialism and Self-Esteem: Longitudinal Evidence from China. Curr Psychol 41, 1559–1568 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00695-3

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