Abstract
We developed new materials to induce a luxury mindset and activate materialistic values, and examined materialism’s relationship to attitudes toward marriage and having children in Singapore. Path analyses indicated that materialistic values led to more negative attitudes toward marriage, which led to more negative attitudes toward children, which in turn led to a decreased number of children desired. Results across two studies highlight, at the individual level, the tradeoff between materialistic values and attitudes toward marriage and procreation and suggest that a consideration of psychological variables such as materialistic values may allow for a better understanding of larger-scale socioeconomic issues including low fertility rates among developed countries. We discuss implications and describe how psychological factors relating to low fertility fit within evolutionary mismatch and life history theory frameworks.
Highlights
We considered the possibility that a key factor prevalent in modern societies—materialistic values—may negatively influence the value that individuals place on marriage and children
The results of the indirect effects demonstrated that materialism was negatively associated with the number of children desired via reduced favorable attitudes toward marriage that was adversely associated with positive attitudes toward having children (-0.006 < 95% Bootstrapping Confidence Interval < -0.215, [54])
In our Modified Incompatibility of Materialism and Children path model, we suggested that materialistic values—the extent to which people derive happiness and status from material goods—would influence their attitudes toward marriage, which would influence their attitudes toward having children, and the number of children desired
Summary
Participants were 91 undergraduates earning participation credit for psychology courses at a major Singapore university. There were 60 women (age: M = 20.52, SD = 1.14) and 31 men (age: M = 22.68, SD = 1.70). For both Studies 1 and 2, ethics approval was obtained from the Singapore Management University Institutional Review Board (SMU-IRB; approval #IRB-09-0097-A0099). Because the studies were conducted online, online consent was obtained instead of written consent. Participants could only proceed with each study and provide data if they indicated consent. This procedure for obtaining consent was approved by the ethics board
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