A Longitudinal Experimental Study Examining How and Whether Practicing Acts of Kindness Affects Materialism

Dariusz Drążkowski () and Radosław Trepanowski
Additional contact information
Dariusz Drążkowski: Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, 89 Szamarzewskiego Street, 60-568 Poznan, Poland
Radosław Trepanowski: Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, 89 Szamarzewskiego Street, 60-568 Poznan, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 23, 1-12

Abstract: (1) Background: Kindness interventions assist individuals in the pursuit of greater well-being. However, little is known about whether these interventions can decrease materialism. The current study tested how kindness interventions decrease materialism and external aspirations. Furthermore, we tested whether these interventions influence impulsive shopping. (2) Method: We randomly assigned 122 females to a three-week intervention of practicing acts of kindness or a neutral intervention (practicing acts related to studying). Before and after the interventions, all participants reported their life satisfaction, level of materialism, and internal and external aspirations. (3) Results: Among women practicing acts of kindness, materialism and life satisfaction did not change compared to the control group, but in both conditions, life satisfaction increased, and materialism decreased. However, we found that practicing kindness was associated with (a) an increase in aspiration affiliation, (b) a reduction in the intention to shop impulsively, (c) less focus on external aspirations, and (d) more focus on internal aspirations. (4) Conclusions: Although our results show that practicing kindness does not lead to a decrease in materialism, they suggest that focusing on increasing personal happiness might lead to such a decrease. Furthermore, our research contributes to the existing literature by demonstrating that kind women are less oriented toward materialistic values.

Keywords: kindness interventions; materialism; satisfaction with life; self-determination theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/16339/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/23/16339/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:23:p:16339-:d:995101

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().