Youth materialism and consumer ethics: do Gen Z adolescents’ self-concepts (power and self-esteem) vary across cultures (China vs. France)?

ABSTRACT

Youth materialism excites adolescents’ unethical consumer beliefs (UCB-dishonesty). We develop a second-stage moderated mediation model, investigate the relationships between materialism and Generation Z teenagers’ consumer ethics (UCB-dishonesty), and treat two self-concept mechanisms (power and self-esteem) as dual mediators and culture as a moderator (China vs. France). We theorize that materialism enhances power (public self) and reduces self-esteem (private self). French adolescents’ sense of power increases UCB more than their Chinese counterparts. Chinese teenagers’ self-esteem reduces UCB more than their French counterparts. We challenge the assumption that the interaction effects between consumers’ self-concepts and UCB are the same across cultures. We offer the following discoveries based on 1,005 (409 Chinese and 596 French) adolescents. First, the measurement model of consumer ethics with four subconstructs is superior to the model with one overall construct. Second, a sense of power and self-esteem mediate the relationships between youth materialism and consumer ethics, creating two positive and negative paths for power and self-esteem, respectively. Third, French adolescents display a higher magnitude and positive intensity between adolescents’ power (public self) and UCB-dishonesty than their Chinese counterparts across all four subconstructs. Chinese teenagers illustrate a lower magnitude but a higher negative intensity between self-esteem and UCB than their French counterparts across three subconstructs, with one exception: Adolescents’ self-esteem has no impact on “no harm, no foul” across cultures. Neither buyers nor sellers experience substantial financial gains or losses. Finally, cultures moderate the second-stage mediation effects. Scholars must enhance adolescents’ self-esteem and curb their power to promote honesty. We offer implications for materialism, consumer ethics, self-concepts, and culture for consumers and retailers.

KEYWORDS:

• Materialism
• hedonic treadmill/money
• consumer ethics
• fraud/theft/inventory shrinkage
• self-concept
• power/public self
• self-esteem/private self
• culture/individualism/collectivism
• mediator/moderator
• ethical consumption/decision-making
• social media/marketing
• Chinese/French
• adolescents/teenagers/Generation Z
• prospect theory
• social comparison
• envy
• sacred/secular/values
• God/religiosity vs. mammon
• money/tool/drug
• ethical training from parents at home/school
• The Wedding at Cana

Acknowledgments

We thank Editor-in-Chief Prof. Thomas Hadjistavropoulos and three anonymous reviewers for their construct feedback, insightful comments, and excellent suggestions, Qinxuan Gu and Bingqian Liang for data collection, analyses, writing, Fr. Christiano Nunes da Silva for inspiration, and Alex Sherrod and Alyssa Sons for their assistance.

Disclosure statement

The authors reported no potential conflict of interest.

Ethics approval

Researchers conducted all procedures in studies involving human participants per ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Consent to participate

We obtained participant informed consent.

Consent for publication

All authors approved the final version of this article for publication.

Notes

¹ The love of money is the root of all evils (1 Timothy 6:10). New American Bible (1990). Oxford University Press. See also the King James Version.

² The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14–30). For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

³ We thank Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Thomas Hadjistavropoulos and three anonymous reviewer’s construct feedback, insightful comments, and excellent suggestions.

⁴ There are two Chinese words in仁義. We use the Pictionary game to illustrate the profound meanings of this term. The first word, 仁, represents a person,人, on the left, and the word number two, 二, on the right. It represents the relationships between two individuals. The second word shows a lamb, 羊, on top of the word “I,” 我. From top to bottom, the word lamb, 羊, has a head and two horns on the top with four legs and a long tail. Thus, one is willing to sacrifice one’s life as a lamb for the other person. The notion of仁義 exists between two people. Readers may find similar constructs in the Holy Bible (Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac, Genesis 22: 1–19).

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.