Religiosity in Materialism

By: Data Avicenna

“Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.” — Thorstein Veblen

The term materialism has become a tremendous significance in the eyes to those involved in marketing and consumer research. Materialism is correlated with the larger tendency of consumers to obtain the goods provided by marketers (Muncy, 1998). Richins (2004) defined materialism as the “importance ascribed to the ownership and acquisition of material goods in achieving major life goals or desired status”. Materialism could turn to be the main concern of one’s life, over religion, friends, and other attainments. Subsequently, studies display that materialism has an explicit outcome on conspicuous consumption (Arli et al., 2016).

Nowadays, society has potential consumers that tend to be materialistic, including youth. The findings by Goldberg et al. (2003) suggested that materialistic youth tend to shop more and save less. He also implied that their parents view them as experts in certain products, and by means act as an influence to their consumption. Materialistic youth tend to consume goods that are successfully advertised and promoted.

When consumers in general change their focus of material gain towards non-material gain, they will consume less from the market; marketers will be left with less consumers. However, this can be beneficial for certain marketers whose goods increase the quality of life. But, on the other hand, it would be a disadvantage for marketers that provide goods and services for materialistic gain. So, how does religion take part?

Religiosity

Religion, as one’s core values, influences the attitude towards obtaining material goods to achieve a desired status (Arli et al., 2016). Delener (1990) defined religiosity as the “degree to which beliefs in specific religious values and ideals are held and practiced by an individual”. Religiosity is able to provide the justification of how groups and nations have integrated; it may provide a rewarding focus in the findings that relates to the attitude of people. Allport (1967) distinguished the characterization of religiosity by extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation are always influential and un-idealistic. Theological terms imply that extrinsic motivation allows an individual to turn to God, but without turning away from oneself. While intrinsic motivation comes internally from an individual, bringing harmony in religious practice of oneself.

The findings of Allport (1967) became a reference for many scholars to construct the dimensions of religiosity, including the discovery by Muhammad et al. (2010). He pointed out that understanding the effect of religion towards human behavior is not straightforward; religious commitment is not the only influence towards religious behavior that can be measured, as there are other several dimensions that can be taken into consideration. He was also able to construct the dimensions based on psychology literatures and marketing studies. These dimensions are particularly the factors that interfere between one’s religion towards consumption behavior, which include: (i) religious affiliation, (ii) religious commitment, (iii) religious knowledge, and (iv) motivation in following a religion.

Religious affiliation is the belief one holds, including the different schools of thought within the belief, such as Sunni and Shia in the Islamic religion, while religious commitment relates to the devotion of oneself towards his/her religion. Furthermore, religious knowledge refers to the degree of understanding of the affiliated religion. At last, the motivation in following a religion is oriented on the intrinsic and extrinsic motivational approach towards religion.

Conspicuous Consumption and the Characteristics of Luxury Goods

Arli et al. (2016) earlier mentioned that materialism has an explicit outcome on conspicuous consumption. Thorstein Veblen originated the term conspicuous consumption in his book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), pointing that the rich frequently consume profusely to display that they are able to do so. Conspicuous consumption can be interpreted as the intention to consume goods that allows buyers to display wealth and social status. Conspicuous consumers obtain satisfaction from spending in an excessive manner to boost social status and achieve materialistic gain (Stillman et al., 2012). Consumers’ motive to indicate social status can be done by purchasing luxury goods from luxury brands (Yildirim et al., 2016). A good with a higher price indicates more willingness coming from the rich to consume the particular good, correspondingly coincide with the ‘Veblen effect’ (Tjahjono, 2014).

Luxury goods are not the type of goods that are of importance to sustain lives, yet they are highly demanded within a society or culture (Kenton, 2018). The capability to purchase luxury goods highly depends on the purchasing power of an individual, in which an increase in income may change one’s consumption behavior to purchase more higher-priced luxury goods. Jackson (2004) as cited by Fionda et al. (2009) illustrated luxury goods as owning the aspects of being highly priced, highly exclusive, and demanded for other than functional purposes. From the product point of view, luxury brands are defined by their high quality, high transaction value, specialty, exclusivity, and expertise (Fionda et al., 2009). Meanwhile, the research of Tjahjono (2014) based on a sample of consumers, suggests that there are six major characteristics that made up the identification of luxury goods: including expense, exclusivity, high quality, uniqueness, having a prestigious brand name, and being non-essential.

Additionally, the attitude towards the intention to purchase luxury goods can be classified into two approaches: (i) affective attitude, or (ii) self-presentation attitude (Arli et al., 2016). Affective attitude implies the positive feelings and joy from having luxury goods, while self-presentation attitude support consumers in presenting their beliefs and values to others. Stimulating positive feelings towards consumption can be a benefit to the market in gaining the probability to purchase more goods, yet the purchase of luxury goods displays the representation consumers prefer to reveal (self-presentation). Finally, both of these attitudes are able to potentially drive the intention to purchase luxury goods among consumers as Hill et al. (1977) pointed out that intention towards particular behaviors is anticipated by attitude.

Religious Perspective towards Materialism

Many religious teachings indicate that wealth and materialism is the initial source of all evil (Arli et al., 2016). For example, in Christianity, materialistic power interferes with the actual source of happiness, which is God. The Bible infers that “but they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil” (Timothy 6:9–10, NIV). Likewise, the Quran infers that “and let not their wealth or their children amaze you. Allah’s Plan is to punish them with these things in this world, and that their souls shall depart (die) while they are disbelievers” (Quran 9:85). Yet one of the core tenets of Buddhism specify desires as sources of suffering (dukkha), which corresponds to materialism, meaning people should manage their desires and stay away from the circle of conspicuous consumption and materialism that bring dissatisfactions (Pace, 2012).

Furthermore, the research conducted by Tjahjono (2014) with his respondents consisting of Muslims, indicates that most consumers considered that Islam permits the acquisition of luxury goods, for the reason that they can purchase them legally. On the other hand, not many regard that Islam does not support the consumption of luxury goods. To the majority of these consumers, the tendency to purchase luxury goods does not disprove Islamic values, while the rest believed that purchasing luxury goods contradicts with Islamic values.

Religiosity and Conspicuous Consumption

In several research, religiosity is used as a segmentation variable in measuring the impact of religion on consumption. Those research regarding the relationship between religion and consumption support Stillman et al. (2012)’s concept in developing a hypothesis; it is said that intrinsically religious people have a lower probability to regard wealth as a state to attain power and reputation. Pursuing power and reputation are signs that are oriented to promote oneself. In addition, intrinsic motivation in affiliating a religion contradicts with the following idea.

The relationship between religiosity and financial welfare have an explanatory characteristic. Strong religious beliefs correlates with less income and total assets. However, strong religious beliefs also correlates with fewer debts. Moreover, this can be interpreted that religious people stay away from unimportant consumptions, including conspicuous consumption. So far, Stillman et al. (2012) hypothetically suggested that conspicuous consumption has an egoistic motive, so as the level of religiosity increases, level of conspicuous consumption will decrease.

The study by (Arli et al., 2016) used students from three universities consisting of 1 public and 2 private universities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia as a sample. Conducting the research in Indonesia is considered appropriate in terms of context, due to the presence of a religious society. Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population (86.1%), followed by Christianity/Catholic (8.7%), Hindu (3%), and others (1.8%). Implications of the study made further comments on the limited literatures in explaining the impact of religion towards conspicuous consumption, and strengthen the discussion on the following impact.

The study displayed that the motivation in affiliating a religion is impactful towards consumers’ consumption behavior. In general, the results implied that intrinsic religiosity displayed a negative correlation between conspicuous consumption, which is in line with the hypotheses of several studies. However, high intrinsic religiosity can still establish positive feelings in utilizing luxury brands, though did not explain into purchasing them. This explains that religious consumers also believed to the approval of acquiring luxury brands, having a self-presentation attitude towards them. Arli et al. (2016) implied that it is evident for consumers to still maintain the view, which says “…we will be happier that our lives will become somehow more satisfying — if we accumulate more and more things”. Regardless of a highly religious society, consumers may recognize that religion is a way to become more attached to God, who is the cause of material, wealth, and happiness.

Conclusion and Suggestions

In the example of Arli et al. (2016)’s study, it can be implied that religion does not significantly affect the intention of luxury goods ownership, which can potentially raise paradoxical significance among religious leaders, managers of luxury goods, and public policy makers.

In the case of religious leaders, the implications of the study produced several objections. Materialistic individuals will view the acquisition of luxury goods as a sign of accomplishment, cause of pleasure, and depiction of luxury (Richins and Dawson, 1992). The attempt to captivate followers can be approached by materialistic intentions, as religious leaders are progressively aware that their followers consist of consumers, this can be seen as religious institutions frequently spend massively in activities related to marketing and promotion hoping to lead people in determining choices and responsibilities. Whereas managers can still benefit from religious consumers by marketing luxury goods, though it is suggested that a contemporary design in marketing is essential to achieve a favorable outcome. Lastly, public policy makers are correlated with the assumption that acquisition of luxury goods increases prosperity, which brings unsustainability and continuously accused for plenty of society’s complications.

The impact between religion and consumption behavior is still under-researched (Lindridge, 2005). As for Arli et al. (2016)’s study, data should be collected from a broader scope of the population. Future research is expected to collect data from both developing and developed countries that can potentially develop a more concrete outcome. Consequently, it is required to broaden the demographics of the sample.

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