Prospective Human Capital: How Materialistic are Thai College Students? An Analysis of Spending Tendencies and Debts

AbstractThe research was designed to investigate the relationship of Materialism to college students spending tendencies and debts by using correlation analysis. Materialism has been defined by Richins and Dawson (1992) as “the importance ascribed to the ownership and acquisition of material goods in achieving major life goals or desired states.” (Richins and Dawson, 1992). A materialistic lifestyle seems to be more and more modern especially for college students. 800 Thai college students from Khon Kaen University and Mahasarakam University currently reside in Northeastern part of Thailand were invited to participate in the questionnaire survey. The correlations of materialism, student's spending tendency and debt were explored by investigating through students’ perception toward themselves and each aspect that considered having correlations. Age, sex, income and education were considered as variables of being materialism, being in debt and effect of their spending tendencies. The results indicate that the correlations between materialism, spending tendencies and debt are prominently significant. Sex seems to have relationship with being materialism and being in debt. Participants with higher incomes have positive attitude toward debts than participants with lower incomes. Contrarily, age and education appear to have no correlations with any aspects