The relationship between materialistic values and environmental attitudes and behaviors: A meta-analysis

By M. Hurst, H. Dittmar, R. Bond, T. Kasser. 2013

399 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A growing body of evidence suggests that materialistic values may be negatively associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. This research used meta-analytic techniques to assess: the mean effect size of the correlation between materialistic values and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors; the ‘true effect size’ adjusting for the reliability of the measures; and the effects of gender, age, population type and publication year on the size of the correlation. A significant, medium-sized association was found between materialistic values and both environmental attitudes and behaviors; these relationships were moderated by population type and publication year, but not by gender or age. Adjusted for reliability, the effects increased considerably, largely due to the low reliability of both types of environmental measures. The implications for future research are discussed, particularly with regard to the importance of using more reliable environmental measures and collecting data from more cultures. Practical applications are also highlighted, particularly as they might apply to environmental campaigns.

Subfields: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/303225e30dd3ecc3a0fe93807d193ab9e6b1313d

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In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

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Citations in the corpus

Meditating for the Planet: Effects of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention on Sustainable Consumption Behaviors (2020, background): “We found small negative relationships with mindful experiences (as e.g., Brown & Kasser, 2005), subjective well-being (as e.g., Dittmar et al., 2014), and both SCBs (as e.g., Hurst et al., 2013; Pepper et al., 2009).”
Advancing sustainable consumption in the UK and China: the mediating effect of pro-environmental self-identity (2015, positive): “Therefore, in line with other authors (Hurst et al., 2013; Kovácsa et al., 2014), we stress the urgent need for much more research of this nature to facilitate more global but differentiated approaches to promoting sustainable consumption behaviour.”
A closer look into the materialism construct: the antecedents and consequences of materialism and its three facets (2015, background): “A meta-analysis that assesses the relationship between materialistic values and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors (Hurst et al., 2013) demonstrates that materialism is negatively associated with both pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors.”