Oh Ga-Eun Grace
Institute of International Business and Governance, Lee Shau Kee School of Business Administration, Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Heliyon. 2021 Feb 22;7(2):e06318. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06318. eCollection 2021 Feb.
Previous research has suggested the negative relationship between self-esteem and conspicuous consumption since conspicuous consumption is aimed to gain social recognition and signal status. However, it has not been much explored how this relationship holds depending on social classes. We propose subjective social class will moderate the relationship between social self-esteem and conspicuous consumption. We also hypothesize the mediating roles of social dominance orientation and life satisfaction in the proposed moderation effect. By conducting the survey with the American sample, we tested these predictions. In Study 1, we showed that the negative relationship between social self-esteem and conspicuous consumption appeared only among high subjective social class individuals. In Study 2, we replicated Study 1 and further demonstrated that social dominance orientation and life satisfaction respectively mediated the interactive effect of subjective social class and social self-esteem on conspicuous consumption. The results suggest that among individuals who perceive themselves to be in a high social class, a low level of social self-esteem is conducive to conspicuous consumption. The theoretical implications and limitations of the present investigation are discussed.
以往的研究表明，自尊与炫耀性消费之间存在负相关关系，因为炫耀性消费旨在获得社会认可并彰显地位。然而，这种关系如何因社会阶层而异，尚未得到充分探讨。我们提出，主观社会阶层将调节社会自尊与炫耀性消费之间的关系。我们还假设社会支配取向和生活满意度在所提出的调节效应中起中介作用。通过对美国样本进行调查，我们检验了这些预测。在研究1中，我们表明，社会自尊与炫耀性消费之间的负相关关系仅出现在主观社会阶层较高的个体中。在研究2中，我们重复了研究1，并进一步证明，社会支配取向和生活满意度分别中介了主观社会阶层与社会自尊对炫耀性消费的交互作用。结果表明，在那些认为自己处于较高社会阶层的个体中，较低水平的社会自尊有利于炫耀性消费。本文还讨论了本研究的理论意义和局限性。
