Parents and Youth workers have blamed all sorts of things for the materialism of students – peer pressure, advertising, poor parenting, the devil, etc.; but University of Minnesota marketing professor Deborah Roedder John maintains self-esteem (or lack of it) is really what’s behind teenagers desire for consumer goods.

In a study published in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, John outlines the results of her research on children in three different age groups, which showed that as a student’s level of self esteem decreases, their desire for goods and services increases.

By asking 50 children in several age groups to answer questions about what makes them happy, John sought to measure the level of materialism by the number of choices for things such as money and brand-name items over non-materialistic things such as being with friends, though some might argue that one often leads to the other.

The researchers found 12- to 13-year-olds were most likely to choose the materialistic items, while their younger and older cohorts were more likely to choose non-materialistic things.

“The level of materialism in teens is directly driven by self-esteem,” John said in a news release issued Monday. “When self-esteem drops as children enter adolescence, materialism peaks. Then by late adolescence, when self-esteem rebounds, their materialism drops.”

John accounts the decline in self esteem in adolescents to physical changes and self-consciousness, as well as social pressures and structures of hierarchy.

(CBC News, 11/26) http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/11/26/materialism.html

Do you think that materialism is a problem? How can churches help students learn to cope with life issues without self medicating with materialism, while at the same time avoiding dogmatic crusades against “stuff?”