The Role of Materialism in Life satisfaction: An empirical investigation of university students

Abstract

Materialism is the attitude that material goods and worldly possessions contribute to the highest value in life. In this fast-developing world, materialistic lifestyles become a source of happiness because of our mental set, which is rooted in our childhood. Still, the fact is that materialism does not give real peace and life satisfaction. The present study was conducted to see the impact of materialism on life satisfaction among university students. The study sample consists of 100 university students (50 males and 50 females), ranging from 22 to 30 years from various departments of Aligarh Muslim University. Richins and Dawson (1992) materialistic values scale was used to measure materialistic value and satisfaction with life scale (Diener et al. 1985) was used to measure life satisfaction. Pearson product-moment correlation, t-test, and Step-wise regression were used for analyses. The findings of the study explored that there was a significant impact of materialism on life satisfaction. Materialism was found to be negatively correlated with life satisfaction along with its dimensions of centrality, happiness, and success. The results further revealed that there was no significant difference between males and females regarding materialism. The findings of the present study may lack generalizability because of the small sample from one university. Therefore, the researcher encouraged to use of a larger sample for future research.