Article: Cultural Identity and Materialism: The Mediating Role of Meaning in Life
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Date
2025
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Alternative Title
Authors
Yang, Tongping
Bi, Chongzeng
Editor
Abstract
Introduction Identifying strategies to mitigate individuals’ endorsement of materialistic values is crucial, given the negative consequences associated with them. Cultural identity could influence how individuals perceive or understand their lives, as well as the goals or values they prioritize. Chinese culture encourages self-transcendence, emphasizes restraint in desires, and generally prioritizes morality over material gains. Therefore, this study aimed to examine whether cultural identity predicts reduced materialism and to explore the potential underlying mechanisms. Given that emerging adulthood is characterized by identity exploration and instability, which may present a critical period for examining how identities shape values, Chinese emerging adults were thus selected as the target group. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a convenience sampling approach. Data were collected through a series of measures assessing cultural identity, materia-
lism, the search for meaning, and the presence of meaning. A total of 984 emerging adults were included in final analyses, with an average age of 19.264 years (SD = 1.296). Pearson’s correlation analyses revealed that cultural identity was positively associated with both the search for meaning and the presence of meaning, and negatively associated with materialism. Mediation analyses indicated that the presence of meaning, along with a sequential combination of the search for meaning and the presence of meaning, mediated the relationship between cultural identity and materialism, while the search for meaning alone did not. Furthermore, when accounting for the indirect effects mentioned above, the direct effect of cultural identity on materialism remained statistically significant.
Description
Subject Headings
kulturní identita, smysl života, materialismus, dospívající mládež
Keywords
Cultural Identity; Meaning in Life; Search for Meaning; Presence of Meaning; Materialism
ISBN
ISSN
DOI
10.15452/PsyX.2025.15.0003
License
CC BY NC 4.0
Citation
Psychologie a její kontexty 15 (1), 2025, 45–60