You may have thought Madison Ave. was already making a killing by playing off of depression. Products from Viagra to Porsches to Banana Republic seem to poise themselves toward filling the gaping hole in our lives.
But a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research confirms that not only does low self esteem increase materialism, but materialism helps create low self esteem. Researchers found that children and adolescents who were discouraged were increasingly materialistic, and that children given even the most modest tokens of encouragement became less materialistic as time went on.
The researchers have a legitimate beef with marketers who exploit an unfortunate emotional circumstance to hawk expensive clothes, luxury goods, and a fancy new phone I’m resisting. But it would be wrong to dismiss low self esteem outright. Depression after all has survived thousands of years of evolution, so L. Ron Hubbard must have given it to us for a reason.
the Blanket Statement 