Materialism in Consumer Behavior and Marketing: A Review

Abstract

In recent years, materialism has become anincreasingly important topic inconsumer behaviour and marketing.However, several scholars havequestioned the existing materialismconceptualizations, by extension thevarious materialism measures. In thispaper, materialism literature isreviewed extensively. This conceptualpaper comprises of four sections.First, materialism is discussed as asocio-cultural phenomenon as well asan individual phenomenon. Second, materialism as an individualphenomenon based on Larsen et al.(1999) conceptual framework isdiscussed. Third, various materialismconceptualizations in consumerbehaviour and marketing literaturehave been reviewed. Furthermore, ten different materialismmeasurement scales were discussed.Also, their drawbacks are mentioned.Based on the review, it is concludedthat existing materialismconceptualizations and measureshave several shortcomings.Consequently, in the fourth part, anewer materialism conceptualizationproposed by Shrum et al. (2012) isdiscussed. Additionally, theadvantages of the newer definition ofmaterialism over prevailingdefinitions are explained.

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