Too much of a good thing
As a Lexington psychologist and couples therapist, Aline Zoldbrod is all too familiar with this picture: A husband and wife no longer connect. They are so exhausted from the pursuit of ''nice things" -- a big house, private school for the kids, fancy cars -- that they are time-starved and depleted. Life is luxurious but unsatisfying and simply no fun.
Zoldbrod said it is not only her clinical experience that tells her such clients are on the wrong track. It's a growing body of research.
Using statistics and psychological tests, researchers are nailing down what clerics and philosophers have preached for millennia: Materialism is bad for the soul. Only, in the new formulation, materialism is bad for your emotional well-being.
In recent years, researchers have reported an ever-growing list of downsides to getting and spending -- damage to relationships and self-esteem, a heightened risk of depression and anxiety, less time for what the research indicates truly makes people happy, like family, friendship, and engaging work. And maybe even headaches.
''Consumer culture is continually bombarding us with the message that materialism will make us happy," said Tim Kasser, a psychology professor at Knox College in Illinois who has led some of the recent work. ''What this research shows is that that's not true."
The research is more nuanced than that, of course. For people who are living paycheck to paycheck, more money unquestionably brings greater well-being. And for the comfortable, a raise or a new purchase can certainly feel good -- for a little while, anyway. Also, economic research indicates that a hunger for money can motivate people to perform better and even more creatively.
There is also a question of cause and effect. Feelings of insecurity incline people toward materialist values, the research suggests, and that insecurity can also lead to relationship troubles and other problems associated with a materialistic lifestyle.
But Kasser argues that when people turn to material things to feel better, they compound the problem, because they seek experiences that ''don't do a very good job of meeting their psychological needs."
Researchers generally measure materialism through surveys (How much do you agree or disagree with statements like: ''The things I own say a lot about how I'm doing in life?") or by statistically analyzing test subjects' ratings of different values in terms of their importance.
Ed Diener, a University of Illinois psychology professor and happiness expert, said in an e-mail that he has found that ''those who value material success more than they value happiness are likely to experience almost as many negative moods as positive moods, whereas those who value happiness over material success are likely to experience considerably more pleasant moods and emotions than unpleasant moods and emotions."
Studies show that poor people who emphasize materialistic goals are especially likely to be unhappy, while in some studies, materialistic rich people show fewer ill effects, presumably because they are meeting more of their goals. But even for the better-off, materialism can create a nagging appetite that can never be satisfied, since no matter how much a person gets, there will always be somebody with more.
Materialism becomes ''a more difficult goal than many," Diener said, ''because it is open-ended and goes on forever -- we can always want more, which is usually not true of other goals such as friendship. With friends, we have them and enjoy them but usually are not taught that we keep needing more."
There's also an opportunity cost to chasing the wrong goals, said Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor who focuses on people's flawed ability to predict their emotional reactions. When people spend their effort pursuing material goods in the belief that they will bring happiness, he said, they're ignoring other, more effective routes to happiness.
So why is materialism so common? The trouble is that the error is subtle. ''If it were the case that money made us totally miserable, we'd figure out we were wrong" to pursue it, Gilbert said. But ''it's wrong in a more nuanced way. We think money will bring lots of happiness for a long time, and actually it brings a little happiness for a short time."
Some research has also found that when people focus on money, status, and things, they are more likely to treat other people as objects, to have shorter, shallower friendships, and to feel competitive rather than cooperative with others, Kasser said.
Boston College professor Juliet Schor warns that the danger of materialism extends to children as well. Her study of metropolitan Boston schoolchildren, published in 2004 in her book ''Born to Buy," found that the more consumerist children became, the likelier they were to suffer from low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. They also became more prone to headaches and stomachaches.
Schor said her research shows that parents can ''immunize" their children against materialistic values by reducing young people's exposure to media, eating dinner together -- particularly home-cooked food -- limiting junk food, and teaching money management through allowances.
''And, of course, parents must also live the values they are trying to teach," she said. ''What I find particularly troubling is the marketers' ability to pass on to children a value system which we now know is detrimental to their physical and emotional well-being."
Whether warnings from social scientists will make a dent in popular consuming values remains to be seen. Kasser compared the expanding pool of data on the potential harm of materialism to the data on lung cancer caused by smoking. Preachers had long called smoking ''the devil's work," he said, but it was only when the cancer connection was proved scientifically that smoking really began to wane.
Gilbert of Harvard, however, is skeptical. ''Let's try. Let's give them the data. Let's shout it from the mountaintops," he said. ''But let's not be too surprised when all the people in the valley nod their heads knowingly and then go on to covet a
E-mail Carey Goldberg at goldberg@globe.com.
Materialism is likely to be a problem for you if:
You find yourself always focusing on buying or attaining the ''next, best thing" as the route to happiness.
You have few areas of your life other than consuming that make you feel passionate and alive.
Your self-esteem varies mostly according to your ability to buy things and gain status.
You believe others don't really care about you and can't be trusted.
The people closest to you feel they don't have enough of your time, attention, or energy.
You find it hard to find time for play and fun with friends and family.
You don't feel emotionally close to others.
You don't have the ability to use relationships with loved ones and your own positive inner voices to soothe you when things go wrong.
You buy things to deal with sadness, loss, fear, or other unsafe feelings.
SOURCE: Lexington couples therapist Aline Zoldbrod
What you can do to make yourself feel happier:
Build close, supportive relationships with others.
Form a connection with your community and/or religious institution. In National Opinion Research Center surveys of 42,000 Americans since 1972, 26 percent of those who rarely or never attend religious services declared themselves very happy, compared to 47 percent of those who attended multiple times weekly.
Try to progress toward your goals.
Be optimistic and feel good about yourself.
Try to find work and/or hobbies that engage your skills. Most people are happier doing active things, like gardening, than passively watching TV.
SOURCE: Ed Diener, University of Illinois
