engleski

Well-being and materialism as predictors of financial investment

Research suggests that people are happier if they spend money on experiential purchase such as travel and going out with friends rather than on material purchases such as clothes and electronics (Carter & Gilovich, 2014). On the other side, people with high materialistic values experience lower levels of well-being (Dittmar et al., 2014). This study examined the predictive values of well-being variables and materialism for the persons’ financial investments into savings, experiential or material purchases. Subjects were a representative sample of Croatian citizens (N=1000, 51% women). The survey was conducted by in-person interviews in the respondents’ homes. They reported their life satisfaction, and completed Personal Wellbeing Index (Cummins 2002) which includes satisfaction with 7 life domains: material status, health, achievement, relationships, safety, community and future security, and the materialism scale (Richins et al., 2004). Also, they reported how they would spend their extra money either in experiential purchases, in material purchases or putting into savings. While controlling for gender, age, and income, hierarchical regression analyses showed that being younger, with higher income, satisfied with the life as a whole and satisfied with their achievements were the strongest predictors of experiential purchases. People who would invest in material purchases were younger and more materialistic than their counterparts. People who would rather save their money were older, with lower income, and less materialistic than their counterparts. The results about experiential and material purchase and well-being confirmed the findings from the literature. Additionally, we found that savings was an important category within Croatian society as the most people would choose to put money into savings than on any purchase. That might reflect the economic situation in Croatia. Economic and cultural environments are discussed as possible contextual influences for how people choose to spend or save their money.

materialism; happiness; finance

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