Comparison of Mexican‐American and Anglo‐American Attitudes Toward Money

Abstract

This study compared attitudes toward money of Mexican‐ and Anglo‐American consumers. Based on the Hispanic/Mexican‐American literature, hypotheses were generated for four dimensions of a money attitude scale (MAS) developed by Yamauchi and Templer (1982). Mexican‐Americans were found to have lower scores on a Retention/Time dimension that reflects willingness to delay spending money to achieve gratification. Contrary to previous studies, Mexican‐Americans were found to have lower scores on a Quality dimension, calling into question an assumption found in much of the literature that Hispanic consumers prefer high prestige goods/services. Hypotheses pertaining to Power/Prestige and Distrust/Anxiety dimensions were also not confirmed suggesting further reservations about Hispanic consumer characterizations found in the consumer behavior literature.