Materialistic values exert a nuanced influence on modern social values and lifestyles, largely due to the flourishing of consumer culture and capitalism. Commence with classical literature, exemplified by Fromm, who posited that contemporary society is primarily steered by a materialistic orientation fixated on amassing possessions and external accomplishments (having), often overlooking spiritual and emotional contentment (being) [1]. Veblen’s theory of the leisure class proposed that the quest for material possessions and conspicuous consumption becomes a defining trait of the leisure class, shaping their social status, and influencing society at large to embrace materialistic values [2]. With the swift pace of modernization and economic growth, materialism and consumerism are increasingly pervasive in contemporary societies across numerous countries, including China [3]. Materialistic values (or materialism) refer to a value orientation that emphasizes the importance of material wealth in pursuit of happiness and successful life. Specifically, materialistic values can be viewed of as consisting of three facets, including (1) possession-defined success, reflecting the view that some of the most important achievements in life include acquiring material possessions; (2) acquisition centrality, indicating that people like a lot of expensive things in their lives; and (3) the acquisition as the pursuit of happiness, for example, people thinking they would be happier if they could afford to buy more things [4]. Based on this conceptualization, the Material Values Scale was developed to measure materialistic values among our participants [4].
Dynamic changes in the modern society have led to social mobility and probably a confusion in norms, increasing a sense of personal insecurity [5]. Researchers have suggested that the accumulation of material wealth is an effective way compensating for insecurity [5]. This noted, materialistic values also have a negative relationship with mental health and personal well-being, such that higher dispositional materialistic orientation or primed materialism was found to be related to lower individual well-being, including risky health behaviors, negative self-evaluations, and pronounced emotional problems, etc. [6, 7]. Moreover, some other studies have revealed that materialistic values are also related to societal well-being and social problems [7], such as compulsive purchases [8], environmental damage [9], reduced pro-social behavior [10], and even unethical behaviors [11]. Therefore, identifying potential factors that underlie the formation of materialism has vital theoretical and practical values.
It is widely recognized that the external environment plays a crucial role in shaping individuals’ internal values and beliefs, including materialistic values [12]. The messages conveyed through media, advertising, and popular culture have a profound impact on individuals. These mediums often promote certain lifestyles, values, and consumerism, affecting how people perceive success, happiness, and societal norms [13]. We posit that frequent exposure to information disseminated through social network sites (SNSs) is correlated with individuals’ heightened aspiration for material wealth. This is because “broadcast” on SNSs (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, WeChat posts and advertisements) is often saturated with messages that promote consumerism and materialism, equating happiness and success with wealth and consumption [13]. Indeed, there is some empirical evidence has revealed that SNS use is associated with materialistic value orientation [14, 15]. However, less is known about the possible mediating and moderating mechanisms linking SNS use and materialistic values to important self-related processes, in particular the psychological processing that influences the formation of self-control and self-acceptance [16]. These are crucial factors for understanding online behavior [17, 18]. We focus on self-control and self-acceptance because both of these self-related processes are important for young people’s psychological functioning [19], and are likely to help them curb temptations on material consumptions otherwise saturated on SNSs [15, 20]. Thus, we propose that studying self-processes such as self-control and self-acceptance can provide valuable insights for understanding the mechanism and boundary conditions of the effects of SNS use and materialistic values on people’s responses. Below we reflect on possible connections between these variables.
SNS use and materialistic values
SNS use has shown explosive growth worldwide. People now have easy and instantaneous opportunities to exchange information and keep connection with others due to the SNS tools. For example, in China, WeChat is the most popular SNS, with approximately 1.225 billion monthly active users, growing at a rate of 5.2% year-by-year, according to its developer Tencent’s 2020 financial report (https://www.tencent.com). Like many other popular SNSs (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), people can easily post information (e.g., update status, post pictures, share contents) and interact with others (e.g., comment, “like”, or directly chat) on WeChat, which help them make self-disclosure and manage their self-image [21]. At the same time, this virtual environment may have the potential to promote social comparison, imitation, jealousy, and other negative outcomes such as anxiety, depression and lower self-evaluation [22,23,24,25,26,27].
Furthermore, active or passive use of SNS can also have different effects on users’ mental health [13, 28]. For example, compared with active SNS use (e.g., posting status), passive SNS use (e.g., lurking on others’ pages) was found undermined user’s affective well-being through heightened envy [29]. Ozimek and Bierhoff [24] also found that passive Facebook use was associated with lower self-esteem and higher depressive tendencies, and these associations were mediated by higher social comparison orientation.
Uses and Gratifications Theory suggested that social media platforms offer people a chance to actively seek out specific contents for meeting their personal needs and goals (such as obtaining information, entertainment, social interaction, self-expression, emotional satisfaction, etc.), rather than just passively accepting media contents [30]. Furthermore, Social Online Self-Regulation Theory (SOS-T) proposes that social media has the potential for self-regulation, functioning as a tool to achieve diverse goals such as self-presentation (including materialistic aspiration), social interaction, and more [13]. Ultimately, this facilitates the realization of hedonically positive outcomes (e.g., good feelings, happiness). In other words, SNSs can be a powerful tool for users pursuing material enjoyment, displaying possessions and consumptions for meeting their materialistic-related desires and needs relevant to self-presentation. In line with the SOS-T, research has found that higher measured or primed materialism is associated with increased use of SNS [31, 32].
SOS-T and associated models [31, 32] have mainly focused on how users’ materialistic value orientation (as personality characteristic) predicts the consumption on SNS. Building and extending on SOS-T, we argue that it is also possible that frequent exposure to (i.e., an environmental factor) or use of SNS (i.e., a behavior) may deepen the material values adopted by users [15]. The occurrence of this phenomenon is attributable to the current prevalence of consumer culture elements in content showcased on SNSs, encompassing brands, luxury goods, fashion models, and celebrity worship [33, 34]. The exposure to these components holds the capacity to profoundly shape users’ perspectives on material possessions and wealth [35]. This influence is particularly conspicuous among young users, who exhibit an increased vulnerability to media impact [36].
SNSs now are conveying much consumption information that may explicitly or implicitly emphasizes the possession of material wealth [37]. For instance, there are plenty of business advertisements displayed in WeChat Moments/Loops or by the commercials’ official accounts. Compared to TV commercials, the content displayed on SNS posters (e.g., brand operators, advertisements) is typically more finely crafted and precisely targeted to cater to users’ interests and needs [38].
Moreover, “friends” on the user’s list may often post their shopping or tourism information which might impress others that more material wealth brings happier lives. As Ferguson and Kasser [39] have suggested, commercial media exposures are closely linked to materialistic aspirations. Indeed, a study by Chan and Prendergast [35] found that motivation for viewing advertisements was positively associated with imitation of celebrity models, which, in turn, positively predicted Chinese youths’ adoption of materialistic values. Ho’s study found that consumption-oriented SNS use, including access to marketing messages and communication with peers on consumption activities, positively predicted young users’ materialistic values through elevated perception of peers’ consumption level [15]. Furthermore, even when not considering the content of SNS use, research has identified a positive relationship between smartphone addiction and adolescent materialism [40]. Moreover, excessive SNS usage has been found to be positively associated with young adults’ online compulsive buying, a manifestation of materialistic behavior [8].
In light of these findings, we put forward our first hypothesis.
Self-control links SNS use with materialistic values
Self-related process can be a crucial factor in understanding online behavior because it influences the formation of goal orientation and behavioral habits in social networks [18, 41, 42]. Self-related variables are also important factors of internalizing and externalizing problems (e.g., compulsive buying and substance abuse), with spontaneous and initiative power influencing our behaviors and values [43, 44]. In particular, self-control is an important goal-directed ability in the self-processes, referring to the capacity to change inherent or habitual behavior and maintain long-term goals by overcoming inner desires and external temptations [45]. It is worth noting that, in the Social Online Self-Regulation Theory (SOS-T) [13], self-regulation, a construct closely related to self-control [46], is treated as a central process that can potentially encompass all other motives and goals, and is conceptualized to explain why people use SNSs. For instance, according to a self-regulatory perspective, SNS usage is treated as a means for materialists to reach their sub-goal, such as an increase in material possessions (e.g., more digital friends), which eventually meets their desired end state such as happy life [31, 32]. In this context, self-regulation can be viewed as a comprehensive concept encompassing all goal-directed processes. This can include self-control, which primarily denotes the capability to facilitate these goal-directed processes.
Despite SOS-T has been proposed mainly for explaining why people use SNSs [31, 32], it also indicates that this kind of self-regulation strategy can be actually dysfunctional and bring unhappiness, for example, frequent SNS use was found correlated with negative outcomes such as lower self-esteem and higher depressive tendencies [22, 24]. Next, we specify how SNS use may link to materialistic values through self-control.
As a central capacity for goal achievement, high self-control is found positively associated with social adaptation, physical and mental health, such as life satisfaction and happiness [45, 47]. Conversely, individuals with low self-control are less tolerant of uncertainty [48], and are more likely to exhibit deviant behaviors, such as internet addiction [44], eating disorders [49], antisocial behaviors [50], and excessive consumption [51, 52]. In this way, self-control may be negatively associated with materialistic value orientation [53].
As a relatively stable trait, one can say that lower self-control capacity may be associated with overuse and indulging in SNSs (i.e., personality→behavior) [54, 55]. It is also possible, however, that a frequent use tendency of SNS may be related to much depletion on one’s overall self-control capacity (i.e., behavior→personality), as has been suggested by the Strength Model of Self-control [56]. This model notes that self-control capacity relies on the limited cognitive resources, which will be consumed when one is performing activities such as selective attention, emotional management, and behavioral control. This state may impair other subsequent behaviors that also need self-control resources.
In the digital era, explosive messages and temptations are prevalent on the social media than before. Even though this kind of information brings users short-term enjoyment, it also increases the burden of information identification and selection, and distracts users’ attention on the task at hand. In short, the engagement of social media can consume users’ cognitive resources, leading to impulse or self-control failure. Empirical research has revealed that students who use SNS (e.g., Facebook) longer are more likely weaker in self-control [57]. And even a 5-minute “dose” of SNS use can significantly lower the user’s self-control in the subsequent choice tasks [58]. Similarly, individuals who have problematic SNS usage are more likely to fail at exerting self-control [59].
Taken together, given that SNS use intensity is closely correlated with self-control [57, 60, 61], which may be negatively associated with materialistic values [53], we present the next hypothesis.
Self-acceptance moderates the associations of SNS use, materialistic values, and self-control
Importantly, despite SNS use intensity is potentially associated with lower self-control and stronger materialistic values, these associations may not be applicable to all users, because some protective factors such as self-acceptance may help buffer the unfavorable associations of SNS use with them.
Self-acceptance refers to a tendency to live with one’s actual self and make decisions in terms of their inner needs and true beliefs, instead of evaluating themselves based on external standards [62]. High self-acceptance individuals tend to appreciate their own strengths but also realize and accept their weaknesses. They clearly know the gap between their actual and ideal selves and are genuinely willing to progress for the ideal self. Relevantly, self-esteem refers to a positive evaluation and emotional value attributed to oneself [63]. Self-acceptance and self-esteem are interconnected in terms of self-perception and emotional evaluation [64], but self-acceptance may provide the foundation for individuals to embrace themselves and thus contribute to the cultivation of self-esteem [65].
The social compensation hypothesis has suggested that people who are less acceptance of themselves tend to believe that SNSs can compensate for offline social and personal problems [60]. Therefore, they may spend more time in online communication and presentation, in order to gain the positive external evaluation and create a positive image of the self, which could increase the risk of internet indulgence, deplete cognitive resources and reduce the level of self-control in other domains [61]. On the contrary, high self-acceptance individuals have optimal self-evaluation and have the “ownership” of their life [62], so they need not satisfy their positive image by indulging and using up too much resources in the virtual network, thus palliating its impairment on self-control. Therefore, as a protective factor, high self-acceptance may moderate the negative association of SNS use and self-control. We then present the next hypothesis as follows.
Likewise, since individuals with high self-acceptance may clearly know their actual needs and evaluate themselves based on inner standards, they thus do not need to excessively consume due to external reasons such as social comparison [62], in other words, they may generally pay less attention to and deal better with the material and consumption information shared on social media. Due to the relative lack of literature reflecting on self-acceptance and materialistic orientation, we look at self-esteem for a reference. When individuals’ self-esteem needs are not adequately met, they often resort to excessive pursuit of external material possessions as a means to compensate for their sense of value and fulfillment [66]. Material wealth serves as a compensatory function for individuals’ self-esteem [67]. This viewpoint is supported by a substantial body of empirical evidence. For instance, individuals with lower self-esteem have been found to exhibit higher materialistic values [68, 69]. As noted earlier, embracing self-acceptance enables individuals to acknowledge their weaknesses and foster tolerance for self-evaluation, even when it tends to be less favorable [65]. This, in turn, may alleviate the inclination towards materialistic values as a means of compensating for low self-esteem. Consequently, the cultivation of self-acceptance could potentially temper one’s inclination towards materialism, thereby weakening the correlation between SNS use and the pursuit of materialistic values.
Therefore, a fourth hypothesis is presented as follows.
The present study
The aims of the present study are to examine (a) whether self-control can mediate the relationship between SNS use intensity and materialistic values, and (b) whether self-acceptance would moderate the association between SNS use intensity and materialistic values, as well as the association between SNS use intensity and self-control. We formulate the moderated mediation model (Fig. 1) to unravel these above relationships.
The proposed theoretical model
