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Journal of Macromarketing
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The Institutional Foundations of Materialism in Western Societies

A Conceptualization and Empirical Test

William E. Kilbourne

Clemson University, kilbour{at}clemson.edu

Michael J. Dorsch

Clemson University

Pierre McDonagh

Dublin City University

Bertrand Urien

Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Andrea Prothero

University College Dublin

Marko Grünhagen

Eastern Illinois University

Michael Jay Polonsky

Deakin University

David Marshall

University of Edinburgh

Janice Foley

University of Regina

Alan Bradshaw

University of London

Studies of materialism have increased in recent years, and most of these studies examine various aspects of materialism including its individual or social consequences. However, understanding, and possibly shaping, a society’s materialistic tendencies requires a more complete study of the relationship between a society’s institutional patterns and the acceptance of materialism by its members. Consequently, the current study examines five of the institutional antecedents of materialism to understand better how and why it develops as a mode of consumption within a society. More specifically, a model relating materialism and a set of institutionalized patterns of social behavior referred to as the dominant social paradigm was developed and tested in a study of seven industrial, market-based countries. The results suggest that the economic, technological, political, anthropocentric, and competition institutions making up the dominant social paradigm are all positively related to materialism. The implications of the relationship are then discussed.

Key Words: materialism • dominant social paradigm • structural equations • institutions

This version was published on September 1, 2009

Journal of Macromarketing, Vol. 29, No. 3, 259-278 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0276146709334298
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