Don't count on buying things to improve your mood or sense of identity

Cost

Free. The hard part is holding back from placing an order when your mood is bad.

What you get

A meta-analysis (pooling many studies) covered 259 independent samples and 753 effect sizes. The result: the more materialistic people are, the lower the well-being they report. On the most commonly used multidimensional scale, the correlation is r = -0.19 (corrected ρ = -0.24). On scales measuring only the “valuing money” aspect, the link is weaker, r = -0.08 to -0.11. Split by which kind of outcome is looked at, the strength differs. The strongest links are with risky health and consumption behavior and with negative views of oneself, r = -0.28 to -0.44. The weakest are with life satisfaction and negative emotions, r = -0.13 to -0.15. The authors also ran a mediation analysis (checking what the link passes through), and the result suggested that this negative link may be because psychological needs are not being met. Another study: in two surveys of different groups, respondents both times said money spent to gain a life experience made them happier than money spent on things. In the lab experiments that followed, the good mood from recalling spending on an experience was also higher than from recalling buying a thing (national figures do not apply here; both studies used samples from abroad)

Notes

Dispute: most of the included studies asked a group of people at one point in time and looked at whether two things moved together, so they cannot tell which came first. The authors themselves say in their conclusion that more experiments and long-term follow-up studies are needed to see the direction. So it should not be read as “buying things makes you unhappy,” only as “becoming happy by buying things is not something to count on.” And the link is weak: r = -0.19 explains only a few percentage points of the differences, and people vary a great deal. This does not argue against spending on things you like; it argues against using shopping as a way to manage your mood, because that makes your first reaction the next time your mood is low placing another order. For the concrete steps for saving money, see §5. For what has evidence when your mood is low, see the second half of §22 and §29. For budget added to be “one notch above others,” see §6.24 (moving up a notch).

Evidence grade

B : Supported by research but without a precise number, or based on small or single studies.

Sources

1. Dittmar H, Bond R, Hurst M, Kasser T (2014). The relationship between materialism and personal well-being: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(5), 879-924. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037409
2. Van Boven L, Gilovich T (2003). To do or to have? That is the question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 1193-1202. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.6.1193

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 6, tip 23. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer