Materialism and Its Associated Concepts

Abstract

Consumption tendency have increased in society and individuals have preferred their tendency rather than needs in their purchasing process. This situation has increased the tendency toward materialism. Therefore, it is important to determine the relationship between materialism and other variables which affect the purchase decision. Some of these factors are perceived social status, status consumption, conspicuous consumption, impulse buying, brand loyalty, consumer independence, and materialism of the consumers. In this context the aim of this paper was to examine the relationships between materialism, perceived social status, status consumption, impulse buying, conspicuous consumption, brand loyalty, and consumer independence. The survey was applied to 412 people in Erzurum/Turkey. To investigate the relationship between these variables, the structural equations model was used. The findings indicated that there was a positive relationship among materialism, status consumption, perceived social status, conspicuous consumption, impulse buying, and brand loyalty. Another significant finding pointed out that materialism was not associated with consumer independence