Psychology - Self Esteem - Essay Example

Materialistic people believe that possessing physical things or property will lead to their satisfaction, content, and happiness. Apparently, studies have found this to be the opposite, such that, with the increase in material wealth, people tend to be unhappier. Caprariello and Reis in their study identified that people who spend more on life-experience events were happier than those acquiring material possessions. Having been identified as two important factors in defining human character, research has also been carried out to identify the correlation between self-esteem and materialism.

Some of the findings have identified that there is an inversely proportional relationship between self-esteem and materialism; people with low self-esteem tend to use material possessions to satisfy their self-consciousness and insecurities (Park and Roedder 73–87). People’s self-esteem and need for materialistic possession are the main causes of societal problems. One of the problems associated with individual’s self-esteem and materialistic needs is poor health. As we have identified in earlier statements, individual’s character is mostly defined by their desire to achieve attain happiness, and this can be achieved through high self-esteem or use of material possessions.

However, since nothing is perfect in this world, those unable to cope with the realities of life will likely fall victim to various health problems such as anxiety and depression. In a study carried out by Sowislo and Orth, they identified that low self-esteem was strongly related to depression. The results showed that, low self-esteem contributed to depression and depression was found to erode an individual’s self-esteem. The study further identified that low self-esteem was also a determinant for anxiety (Sowislo and Orth 214).

People experiencing low self-esteem are known to seek material possessions in order to fulfill their desire for content and