An American bumper sticker from the 1980s used to read, “He who dies with the most toys wins”. While this was probably intended as a satirical send-up of modern-day consumerist priorities, it seems that many people have adopted this as their goal in the game of life.

As we acquire material goods, our lives become more cluttered. A significant chunk of this mess is the proliferation of technological gadgets that seem to need regular updating, and which shortly after being introduced onto the market become regarded as an essential element of modern life.

Today, for many people, shopping has evolved from being a necessary chore to one of the primary leisure activities in Western countries like Australia and New Zealand. There is a common perception that consumerism is innate and that the love of shopping is hard-wired into people: unfortunately, history suggests otherwise.

Moulding public opinion

Edward Bernays is a little-known figure today but was highly influential in giving birth to the modern consumer era. A nephew of Sigmund Freud living in New York, during the 1920s he pioneered the field of public relations and would be known today as a spin doctor.

Americans were traditionally frugal and self-reliant, with consumerism some way down their list of priorities. On behalf of big business, Bernays took on the task of orientating people’s attitudes towards self-gratification. Throughout his life, he remained a firm believer in the necessity for mass social engineering by an elite for the good of humanity.

After World War II, the US saw a major ramping-up of the consumer culture from austere wartime conditions. Consuming was portrayed as a patriotic act. Items such as fridges and cars grew in size and suburbia started to sprawl. In 1955, economist Victor Lebow was famously quoted as stating in a magazine article, “Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.”

Consumer psychology

As a society, we have taken on a consumer self-identity that has eclipsed many other underdeveloped potentials and possibilities. In some cases, we take part largely for the thrill of the purchase rather than the pleasure of its use, and a lot of items are left to gather dust. For many shoppers, the consumption ritual provides a much-needed stimulus and serves as a substitute for real meaning and purpose.

An orientation towards possessions is usually coupled with an impoverishment in interpersonal relationships and a corresponding lack of interest in spiritual or religious practices. Consumers tend to receive their cues from external stimuli and, in addition to “keeping up with the Joneses”, will often emulate those they see as being higher in the social hierarchy. What were previously seen as luxuries are increasingly viewed as necessities, and this may drive the choice to take on extra paid overtime at work.

In one study, University of Newcastle psychologist Shaun Saunders found that materialists are on the whole less psychologically healthy than people interested in a simple lifestyle. They were found to be more susceptible to depression, tending towards anger and generally less satisfied with their lives than others. Less concerned about the environment, they are also more likely to be conformist. This is backed up by previous research from the US that also links materialism to depression.