Shiny Objects

September 5, 2011
Why can’t money buy happiness? Roberts, professor of marketing at Baylor University, studies why Americans believe and behave as if possessions will induce, increase, and enhance happiness—when, as studies show, materialism “negatively correlate” with well-being. He examines the psychological underpinnings of our desire to purchase—even beyond our means (it’s a high “similar to that caused by drugs or alcohol... triggered by internal psychological tension and accompanied by relief and frustration”). Roberts offers a history of American consumerism, drawing parallels between different eras (e.g., the gold rush and the more recent dot-com boom), the impact of Calvinism, Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Vietnam War and the counterculture, and how the attacks of September 11 influenced (and usually stoked) the American mania for consumption. Roberts’s inquiry provides ample psychological and historical insights, but the book’s most valuable and unique feature is the quizzes included in each chapter. These opportunities for self-assessment—on how much we spend, how vulnerable we are to status anxiety—give readers “time, space and motivation” to examine our own relationships toward consumer culture and personal happiness. An intriguing cultural history–cum–self-help book with abundant hard scientific data.

November 1, 2011
Though most of us fully acknowledge that material possessions don't lead to happiness, we buy stuff anyway, making us a nation of consumers in an economy overly dependent on our spending habits. Why do we do it? Marketing professor Roberts examines the perceived relationship between materialism and happiness in the quest for status, self-image, or comfort, and the havoc it is wreaking in individual lives and the U.S. economy. He explores how American culture has evolved from frugality and a strong work ethic into impulsive consumerism and instant gratification. He draws on 20 years of research on materialism but goes beyond studies and statistics to offer vignettes of maxed-out credit cards and crazed mobs of shoppers trampling store employees in the frenzy of Christmas sales. Roberts defines materialism as the worship of things and offers readers a chance to profile their own spending habits with classifications ranging from tightwad to spendthrift. He examines the psychology, politics, and economics of overspending, devoting a separate chapter to the religious phenomenon of the prosperity gospel. A far-reaching analysis of why we spend so much and how to break the habit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)