Environmental Correlates of Adolescent’ Materialism: Interpersonal Role Models, Media Exposure, and Family Socio-economic Status

Abstract

The present study examined how adolescents’ materialism relates to interpersonal materialism role models (i.e., mothers’, fathers’, siblings’, and peers’), media exposure, and family socio-economic status (SES). We obtained our data from the adolescent, his/her mother and father, and one each of his/her siblings and peers. The results showed that mother’s, father’s, sibling’s and peer’s’, materialism are approximately equally strong predictors of adolescents’ materialism. Further analyses, using structural equation modeling, revealed that interpersonal materialism role models and media exposure both positively predicted adolescents’ materialism; in contrast to past literature, family SES was also significantly positively related to adolescents’ materialism. Limitations and implications of the current project are discussed.