Abstract
Across five studies, we found consistent evidence for the idea that personal relative deprivation (PRD), which refers to resentment stemming from the belief that one is deprived of deserved outcomes compared to others, uniquely contributes to materialism. In Study 1, self‐reports of PRD positively predicted materialistic values over and above socioeconomic status, personal power, self‐esteem, and emotional uncertainty. The experience of PRD starts with social comparison, and Studies 2 and 3 found that PRD mediated the positive relation between a tendency to make social comparisons of abilities and materialism. In Study 4, participants who learned that they had less (vs. similar) discretionary income than people like them reported a stronger desire for more money relative to donating more to charity. In Study 5, during a windfall‐spending task, participants higher in PRD spent more on things they wanted relative to other spending categories (e.g., paying off debts).
Highlights
Given these potential negative consequences, researchers have been interested in understanding the antecedents of materialism
The relation between personal relative deprivation (PRD) and materialism does not appear to be confounded by these individual difference factors that have been shown previously to contribute to material values
We cannot rule out the possibility that rather than our proposed model, materialism might lead to PRD, or that feeling resentful might make people more attuned to what others have
Summary
Given these potential negative consequences, researchers have been interested in understanding the antecedents of materialism (see, e.g., Kasser, Ryan, Couchman, & Sheldon, 2004; Shrum et al, 2014). Experimental and correlational research has shown, for example, that low self-esteem (Park & John, 2011), low sense of personal power (Rucker & Galinsky, 2008), feelings of uncertainty (Chang & Arkin, 2002), economic threat (Sheldon & Kasser, 2008), perceived peer pressure (Banerjee & Dittmar, 2008), and lower income (Kasser, Ryan, Zax, & Sameroff, 1995) contribute to people adopting materialistic values and goals Cutting across these explanations is the idea that increased materialism is ‘one type of compensatory strategy intended to countermand the. Study 1 examined whether individual differences in PRD are associated with the endorsement of material values over and above several individual difference factors that might confound this relationship
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