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Counteracting Teens' Logo Lust

Posted by on Mar 29, 2010 | 4 Comments

There should be an image here!Today’s adolescents have been characterized as the most materialistic generation in history: a brand-oriented and consumer-involved group who derive self-worth from owning luxury handbags and the latest technology devices.

Many blame parents and peers for the increased level of teen materialism. In fact, research suggests that parents and peers act as role models of behavior and therefore, highly materialistic parents and peers are likely to encourage materialism in teenagers.

A new paper from University of Arizona assistant marketing professor Lan Nguyen Chaplin of the Eller College of Management assesses the issue through a different lens.

“Instead of just looking at how parents and peers encourage materialism in teenagers, we also examine how they decrease materialism. We view parents and peers as important sources of emotional support and psychological well-being, which ultimately affects teenagers’ level of materialism” said Chaplin. “We find that supportive parents and peers boost adolescents’ self-esteem, which decreases their need to embrace material goods as a way to develop positive self-perceptions.”

Along with co-author Deborah Roedder John of the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, Chaplin studied 12- to 18-year-olds and found that it is possible for parents to reduce their adolescents’ drive for material goods. The resulting paper, “Interpersonal Influences on Adolescent Materialism: A New Look at the Role of Parents and Peers,” is forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

The authors found that teenagers who have supportive and accepting parents and peers in their lives are less materialistic. Parents and peers can provide the support and acceptance that teens crave, which reduces their need to focus on expensive material goods as a substitute for self-worth.

“Parents and peers play a very important role in teenagers’ lives. They provide the much needed emotional support and contribute greatly to teenagers’ feelings of self-worth,” said Chaplin. “When teens feel better about themselves, they are less likely to feel the need to use material possessions to boost their self-esteem and achieve happiness.”

Liz Warren-Pederson @ University of Arizona

[Photo above by Bruno Furnari / CC BY-ND 2.0]

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  • Buffet

    What those hoodlums could use is a good dose of HARD WORK!

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  • http://justenrobertson.com Justen

    Materialism is a philosophical ontology which states that all things that exist are made of matter, and all phenomena result from interactions between matter. What these kids suffer from is not a philosophy that rejects spirituality and mysticism, it is “consumerism”. That’s the word you’re looking for.

    And yes, I agree, it’s a bit of a problem when one values brand over material quality and utility. Unfortunately it’s part of the quirk of the human brain that makes things we recognize seem better than things we don’t – the same quirk that causes people to exalt and obsess over popular actors and musicians. I would say it also stems from an education system that teaches kids from a very young age that the only worthwhile value in life is pleasing authority figures in order to get more shiny gold stars than their peers.

    Of course if you read John Taylor Gatto’s various works on the history and practice of western education, you realize that the intent of that kind of education is specifically to engineer the consumer culture we have today. It’s not really western at all – nothing like the Greeks or Romans would have done, it’s rooted in the techniques developed to reinforce the caste system in India during the middle ages, but I digress.

    In any case, between basic human psychology and the way we train children to find satisfaction only in the pursuit of production and consumption of consumer goods for the enrichment of their elitist superiors, this is no surprise at all.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/shadowmyth/ shadowmyth

    These studies always crack me up…pointing out the obvious that anyone with logic skills already knows. People seek to fill themselves, and when they cannot find real satisfaction, gluttonize themselves with things. Of course things cannot give long term satisfaction, so they become gluttonous corporate whores, selling their souls for more stuff, and the cycle just goes onward.