Wanting Things and Needing Affiliation: Ethnic Consumers and Materialism (Chapter 10)

Materialism is presumed to be a core characteristic of global consumer culture. Consumption-related values like materialism are pertinent for understanding the establishment, maintenance, and expression of ethnicity and cultural affiliation. The attitudes, values and behaviors of each consumer are the product of distinctive personality traits and experiences, shaped by social and cultural factors. Worldwide, advertisers employ numerous themes connected with materialism. These messages reinforce notions of status, class and the desirability of upward social mobility. Much scholarly work has focused on materialism; yet, cross-cultural studies are relatively scarce, inhibiting theory generalization. How does globalization propagate materialistic dispositions? Is the nature of materialism uniform across ethnic groups? Do parochially-oriented consumers resist materialistic tendencies? To what extent are ethnic values and traditions eroding or revitalizing, under which materialistic consumption contexts? This chapter focuses on how ethnicity—and associated values/norms—combines with acculturation to advance materialism, across different cultures and consumption contexts