The "marketing industry" is not driving the world mad, or even making it mildly dysfunctional. Human nature, including acquisitiveness, is comfortingly constant, and as consumption increases so does supply.
One of the more basic elements of human nature would be a tendency towards tribalism, yet a good case could be made that it has not remained constant but rather declined over the past centuries - or certainly at the very least shifted away from geographical and ethnic prejudices - and a large part of that is due to passive or indirect consequences of improvements in communications and travel. If largely passive developments can so noticeably
counteract a basic element of human nature, why on earth would you assume that our active and culturally-ubiquitous push
towards acquisitiveness would have no effect at all? Especially when all indications seem to be that we are in fact consuming more and aspiring for more wealth?
A 2005
paper by researchers at the economics department in the University of Milan:
This paper argues that television viewing produces higher material aspirations, by enhancing both adaptation and positional effects, thus lowering the effect of income on life satisfaction. Using individual data from the World Values Survey we present evidence indicating that the effect of income on both life and financial satisfaction is significantly smaller for heavy television viewers, relative to occasional viewers. This finding is robust to a number of specification checks and alternative interpretations. Overall, the results can be interpreted as providing an additional explanation for the income-happiness paradox: the pervasive and increasing role of television viewing in people’s life, by raising material aspirations, reduces the effect of income on individual happiness.
One Rolex short of contentment, published in the Guardian December 2013
There has long been a correlation observed between materialism, a lack of empathy and engagement with others, and unhappiness. But research conducted over the past few years seems to show causation. For example, a
series of studies published in the journal Motivation and Emotion in July showed that as people become more materialistic, their wellbeing (good relationships, autonomy, sense of purpose and the rest) diminishes. As they become less materialistic, it rises.
In one study, the researchers tested a group of 18-year-olds, then re-tested them 12 years later. They were asked to rank the importance of different goals – jobs, money and status on one side, and self-acceptance, fellow feeling and belonging on the other. They were then given a standard diagnostic test to identify mental health problems. At the ages of both 18 and 30, materialistic people were more susceptible to disorders. But if in that period they became less materialistic, they became happier. . . .
These studies, while suggestive, demonstrate only correlation. But the researchers then put a group of adolescents through a church programme designed to steer children away from spending and towards sharing and saving. The self-esteem of materialistic children on the programme rose significantly, while that of materialistic children in the control group fell. Those who had little interest in materialism before the programme experienced no change in self-esteem.
Another paper,
published in Psychological Science, found that
people in a controlled experiment who were repeatedly exposed to images of luxury goods, to messages that cast them as consumers rather than citizens and to words associated with materialism (such as buy, status, asset and expensive), experienced immediate but temporary increases in material aspirations, anxiety and depression. They also became more competitive and more selfish, had a reduced sense of social responsibility and were less inclined to join in demanding social activities. The researchers point out that, as we are repeatedly bombarded with such images through advertisements, and constantly described by the media as consumers, these temporary effects could be triggered more or less continuously.
In terms of the thread topic, these findings might help explain why we often seem to scarcely even care - at least on a social/policy level - about the effect which our overconsumption is having on the planet's other species, on the broader environment and ultimately on future generations.