Materialism & personality

Although the negative link between materialism and well-being has been confirmed by results from many empirical studies, mechanisms underlying this association still remain partially unexplained. This issue is addressed in this project in two ways. Firstly, the nature of components of materialism is examined, secondly – the article demonstrates that the fundamental factor that brings materialism and well-being together is personality, particularly neuroticism and narcissism. The project includes three empirical studies, in which three main assumptions are verified – that the components of materialism, i.e. acquisition centrality, acquisition as a pursuit of happiness and possession-defined success, have dissimilar impacts on well-being, that materialists with high and low levels of neuroticism and narcissism differ with regard to well-being, and that neuroticism and narcissism mediate the relationship between materialism and well-being.