Ricerc@Sapienza

The global luxury market, and its accompanying negative consequences (e.g., social exclusion, pollution, workers¿ exploitation), is growing. The proposed research program aims to identify the main socio-motivational processes that lead individuals to conspicuous consumption, defined as the acquisition and display of expensive goods and services aimed at attaining social status. Specifically, we propose that ambition, a manifestation of the quest for significance, should lead to conspicuous consumption aimed at improving one¿s social status and thereby enhancing one¿s sense of significance. Moreover, since malicious envy is characterized by tendencies to damage targets of envy whereas benign envy entails a tendency to improve oneself, we expect that ambition leads to conspicuous consumption via benign (but not malicious) envy. Additionally, normative social influence should play an important role in the process that links ambition to conspicuous consumption. Indeed, if normative social influence is an external social pressure to conform that, once satisfied results in enhanced social worth, then the relationship between ambition and conspicuous consumption should be magnified when there is a high (vs. low) pressure to conform. We will test our hypotheses across seven studies. Studies 1 and 2 will test the association between ambition and conspicuous consumption through a cross-sectional and an experimental methodology, respectively. Studies 3 to 5 will test the indirect effect of ambition on conspicuous consumptions via benign and malicious envy. Study 3 will implement a cross-sectional design, Study 4 will include the experimental manipulation of ambition, and Study 5 will manipulate benign vs. malicious envy. Studies 6 and 7 will test the effect of the interaction between ambition and normative social influence on conspicuous consumption through a cross-sectional and experimental methodology, respectively.