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Cited by 249Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and IdentificationEmotions and Moral BehaviorDeath Anxiety and Social Exclusion

Cuing Consumerism: Situational Materialism Undermines Personal and Social Well-Being

Bauer, Monika A., Wilkie, James E. B., Kim, Jung K., Bodenhausen, Galen V.·2012·Psychological Science
DOI 10.1177/0956797611429579
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Abstract

Correlational evidence indicates that materialistic individuals experience relatively low levels of well-being. Across four experiments, we found that situational cuing can also trigger materialistic mind-sets, with similarly negative personal and social consequences. Merely viewing desirable consumer goods resulted in increases in materialistic concerns and led to heightened negative affect and reduced social involvement (Experiment 1). Framing a computer task as a “Consumer Reaction Study” led to a stronger automatic bias toward values reflecting self-enhancement, compared with framing the same task as a “Citizen Reaction Study” (Experiment 2). Consumer cues also increased competitiveness (Experiment 3) and selfishness in a water-conservation dilemma (Experiment 4). Thus, the costs of materialism are not localized only in particularly materialistic people, but can also be found in individuals who happen to be exposed to environmental cues that activate consumerism—cues that are commonplace in contemporary society.

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  • For the Bauer et al. (2012) study, the GPT sample did not replicate the original result or the Many Labs 2 result: consumer framing did not result in lower trust.

    “Consumer framing did not result in lower trust”

    From Diminished diversity-of-thought in a standard large language model (2024) · cites this paper as Bauer et al., 2012

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Related

Authors
Bauer, M. A., Wilkie, J. E. B., Kim, J. K., & Bodenhausen, G. V.
Affiliations
Northwestern University (US)
ORCID
Venue
Psychological Science
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2012-03-16
Volume
23
Issue
5
Pages
517-523
ISSN
  • 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
  • 1467-9280
DOI
10.1177/0956797611429579
OpenAlex
W2125302733
Cited by
249
References
30
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 1
FWCI
36.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Singapore Management University Institutional Knowledge (InK) (Singapore Management University) (submittedVersion)
Funders
Association for Psychological Science
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
Keywords
materialism, consumerism, situational cues, well-being, negative affect, social engagement, self-enhancement, task framing, competitiveness, selfishness, consumer goods
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Affect, Cues, Female, Humans, Male, Motivation, Personal Satisfaction, Young Adult, Social Participation

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