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Value Seekers, Big Spenders, Non-Spenders, and Experiencers: Consumption, Personality, and Well-Being

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Consumption and Well-Being in the Material World

Abstract

By joining materialism (high to low) with money conservation (tight to loose with money), I propose a consumer classification: Value Seekers are tight with money and materialistic; Big Spenders are loose with money and materialistic; Non-Spenders are tight with money not materialistic; and Experiencers are loose with money and not materialistic. The Big Spender is most prone to credit card misuse, impulse buying, and debt. The Value Seeker, although materialistic, is not as susceptible to these trends as the Big Spender, and the Experiencer, although not frugal, is also less susceptible. Price expertise increases with both materialism and frugality; the Value Seeker is the go-to price expert and the Experiencer is the least price aware. The Non-Spender and Experiencer are the most intrinsically motivated and the Big Spender is the least. The relationship between self-construal and materialism is complex with a tendency for the independent self to be less materialistic. Well-being decreases with materialism and increases with frugality, but the Experiencer, although not frugal, has high well-being. The Big Spender stands out as lowest in well-being.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the first sample, the means were 3.58 for materialism and 5.55 for frugality (N = 329) on a 7-point scale; for the second sample, the means were 3.39 for materialism and 5.70 for frugality (N = 314). Scale reliabilities (Cronbach’s alphas) are good, from .72 for frugality to .81 for materialism. Thus, although sampling from the same population, but at different times (2007 and 2010), the second sample was somewhat less materialistic and more frugal than the first; the differences although not large are statistically significant (p < .01).

  2. 2.

    The second sample was significantly more interdependent than the first (t = 5.87, p < .001). The size of the difference is less than half a point on the 7-point scale (.464 or 6.63 %) not a large difference, but not small either.

  3. 3.

    The means of the two groups were equivalent, and for both, the correlations between materialism and happiness were moderate and significant at.01 (r = −.263 and r = −.205, respectively). The correlations between frugality and happiness were lower, r = .107 for Sample 1 (n.s.), and r = .177 for Sample 2 (p < .01).

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  1. Empire State College, State University of New York, 150 East Route 59, 10954, Nanuet, NY, USA

    Prof. Miriam Tatzel

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Tatzel, M. (2014). Value Seekers, Big Spenders, Non-Spenders, and Experiencers: Consumption, Personality, and Well-Being. In: Tatzel, M. (eds) Consumption and Well-Being in the Material World. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7368-4_5

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