Background

• Although emerging research suggests that the internalisation of consumer culture ideals could to lower well-being, there is still relatively little work examining the motives behind these ideals in children and adolescents, and the many factors that could influence the links with well-being have notyet been explored. 
• Our previous work has indicated that social motives for wanting material goods and wanting to look the ‘right way’ may be a strong factor in determining the extent to which consumer culture ideals are linked to well-being, and Self-determination theory offers an explanation as to why this might be the case. 
• However, the case has also been made that consumer culture ideals may be linked to lower well-being because these ideals are a symptom or consequence of underlying insecurity regarding one’s sense of identity.  For example, feeling insecure about one’s own identity (e.g., low self-esteem or feelings of a rejected peer status) may lead to pursuing consumer culture ideals as maladaptive forms of coping, e.g., “having this product or looking this way will improve the way I feel about myself and people will like me more”. 
• Using the data from the first time point of our longitudinal study, the aim is to evaluate links between children’s consumer culture ideals and well-being, taking into account the roles of motives and children’s sense of identity.

 Main aims

• To test our hypotheses about links between the internalisation of children’s consumer culture ideals and well-being on a number of indicators, in a large sample of primary and secondary school children.
• To examine the moderating roles of children’s sense of identity, perceptions about themselves, and status among their peers

 Hypotheses

• Internalisation of consumer culture ideals will be linked to lower subjective well-being and body-esteem, and increased depressive symptoms and fear of negative evaluation.
• Internalisation of consumer culture ideals will be more strongly linked to indicators of well-being for children with a weaker sense of identity.

 Methods

• Over 1000 children from Years 3, 4, 7 and 8 (8-13 years) -- attending three primary and three secondary schools in Brighton and Hove, UK -- completed 13 different measures at three time points, approximately 9 months apart from each other.  All measures were completed in whole class groups during two separate sessions, approximately one week apart, taking approximately 30-40 minutes on each occasion.
• Measures
  • Materialistic and appearance motives scales - Two separate scales reflecting children’s social motives (e.g., ‘to be popular’) for wanting material things and to look good.
  • Consumer Culture Internalisation Scale - Statements reflecting children’s materialistic (e.g., ‘I wish I was rich like celebrities on TV’) and appearance (e.g., ‘Having the perfect body is important to me’) ideals.
  • Identity measure - Questions assessing children’s strength of identity in different domains (e.g., appearance, friendships).
  • Life Satisfaction Scale - Statements reflecting how children feel about their lives (e.g., ‘My life is going well’).
  • Revised Body-esteem Scale - Statements reflecting how children feel about their own appearance (e.g., ‘I like what I weigh’).
  • Children’s Depression Inventory (Short version) - Statements assessing children levels of depressive symptoms (e.g., ‘Things bother me all the time’).
  • Fear of negative evaluation - Statements reflecting the extent to which children worry what others think of them (e.g., ‘I worry what others say about me’).
  • Physical health - Statements reflecting recent health (e.g., 'I have felt well and in good health’).
  • Peer status - Children’s anonymous nominations of peers in their class for a number of different descriptors (e.g., ‘Three children who are cooperative’).
  • Self-perceptions - Children choose from one of two descriptions of a child (e.g., 'Some children are happy with the way they are’ vs. 'Some children are not happy with the way they are’) and then decide if the description they pick is ‘quite’ or ‘really’ like themselves.

Summary of Findings

Our longitudinal design allowed us to track, for the first time, whether (a) a strong consumer value orientation leads to a deterioration in children’s well-being over time, or whether (b) children with initially low well-being come to adopt consumer culture values in a (maladaptive) attempt to improve their social and personal well-being. We have clear evidence that the links between consumer culture values and well-being are bi-directional, suggesting a negative downward spiral, where lower well-being leads to consumer value adoption which, in turn, lowers well-being further.  The same pattern was observed for peer rejection, with those rejected by their peers more likely to turn to consumer culture values over time.  This appeared to be counterproductive for the children, because the endorsement of these values in turn predicted greater, rather than less, peer rejection at the final time point.  

Our ongoing analysis suggests that the security of children's identity may serve as a buffer against the negative impact of adopting a consumer culture orientation.  Among children with a secure sense of identity (broadly, their contentment with the way they see themselves now), there was little or no evidence of a negative downward spiral. Rather, the findings described above tended to occur for children who experienced greater identity deficits, reporting gaps between how they see themselves (with respect to having friends, school work, material goods, looks, and self-worth) and how they would ideally like to be.