Materialism in Chinese college students during 2007–2020: The influence of social change on the inclining trend

Abstract

Materialism is fundamental to the human value or goal system; therefore, an understanding of its level among Chinese college students and its changes over time is of great value. In the present study, a cross-temporal meta-analysis was performed by reviewing studies that conducted Material Values Scale-based assessment of the materialism level among Chinese university students from 2007 to 2020. Moreover, a time lag analysis was performed to clarify whether variations in materialism level are interpretable with macro-social indicators. Finally, 82 articles on studies enrolling a total of 45,966 Chinese university students were reviewed. The materialism score significantly increased on a yearly basis. Furthermore, macro-social changes in diverse areas, including economic condition (gross domestic product per capita, consumption level of all residents and national disposable income per capita), social connectedness (urbanisation degree and divorce ratio) and overall threat (rate of university enrollment), were the major factors influencing the degree of materialism among the students. By identifying the inclining trend of materialism among these college students across time and using relevant macro-social indicators, a theoretical three-dimensional framework was established to elucidate the degree of materialism among Chinese college students as a group.

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