materialism psychology essay

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Self-compassion, the ‘quiet ego’ and materialism

The research is an investigation of self-compassion and materialism. Self-compassion is when an individual has a caring, non-judgmental view of the self. This quality has been related to lower depression, less negative emotion and higher psychological health (Neff, 2003). Materialism has been consistently associated with low subjective well-being and unhappiness. A related concept is that of the ‘quiet ego’, which is a less competitive, less self-centered individual with more concern with connecting with others and with personal growth (Wayment et al., 2015). Therefore, it is hypothesized that highly materialistic individuals will be lower in self-compassion and have a fear of compassion from others and towards others and that self-compassion and fears of compassion will mediate the relationship between materialism and low subjective well-being. As materialistic individuals are more likely to be competitive and individualistic, it is hypothesized that the ‘quiet ego’ will be negatively related to materialism. These hypotheses were investigated using a set of questionnaires with 423 undergraduate participants. The results indicated a relationship between materialism and fear of compassion for others and of responding to the compassion of others. Materialism was also negatively related to the ‘quiet ego’ and related constructs such as: mindfulness, satisfaction with life and generativity. Self-compassion, fears of compassion and the quiet-ego were also found to mediate the relationship between materialism and measures of well-being. The results are consistent with several theoretical explanations for the development of materialism. It is possible that increasing self-compassion, reducing fears of compassion and ‘ego-quieting’ procedures could be developed as methods of reducing materialistic tendencies.

1. Introduction

Self-compassion is when an individual has a caring, non-judgmental view of oneself, including one's inadequacies and failures ( Neff, 2003 ). Self-compassion has been related to lower depression and negative emotion and higher psychological health. According to Neff (2003) , self-compassion is not the same as self-esteem and can be a better predictor of well-being in some cases. Neff (2003) argues that self-compassion offers all the benefits high self-esteem, such as higher subjective well-being and better overall adjustment without the drawbacks: such as the potential for narcissism and self-centeredness. According to Neff (2003) , self-compassion has none of these issues and can be elevated without increasing these attributes in the individual. Self-compassion is also more amenable to change compared to self-esteem, which can be difficult to increase in the case of low self-esteem ( Neff, 2003 ). One factor that has been consistently related to low self-esteem and subjective well-being is that of materialism ( Dittmar et al., 2014 ; Chaplin and John, 2007 ). Self-compassion, materialism and wellbeing may have a communality as lack of self-compassion has also been related to lower well-being and self-esteem (e.g., Gunnell et al., 2017 ).

Materialism involves a focus on the acquisition of possessions that becomes the central motivator and path to happiness in an individual's life ( Richins and Dawson, 1992 ). As Nagpaul and Pang (2017) have argued, the majority of the research on materialism has examined the negative psychological effects of materialism rather than the possible antecedents or underlying causal mechanisms for the development of materialistic traits or values. Social-cultural influences have been mentioned by researchers such as Richins and Chaplin (2015) , Kasser et al. (2004) and Ahuvia and Wong 2002 . Richins and Chaplin (2015) have found that parenting practices that reward achievements with material goods as being influential in the development of materialism. Kasser et al. (2004) discuss the socialization process which models and reinforces materialistic values which become internalized. Ahuvia and Wong (2002) describe developmental experiences whereby the individual becomes more materialistic because of feelings of deprivation relative to others. These three sets of social-cultural explanations fall under what Nagpaul and Pang (2017 , p. 601) refer to as the “…socialization pathway…” to materialism. These types of influences may run counter to the development of self-compassion and compassion for others as materialistic values emphasize attributes antithetical to compassionate values such as achievement, superiority to others, dominance, power and hedonism ( Karabati and Cemalcilar, 2010 ; Watson, 2016 ; Nagpaul and Pang, 2017 ).

The second type of antecedent is the “…self-esteem repair pathway…” ( Nagpaul and Pang, 2017 , p. 611). Materialism has been viewed as an attempt to repair self-esteem as the individual compensates for feelings of emptiness when positive experiences of personal growth, interpersonal connections and autonomy are not present ( Nagpaul and Pang, 2017 , p 611).

Vonk and Smit (2012) discussed the concept of contingent, intrinsic self-esteem whereby the individual evaluates whether or not his or her actions are congruent with the self and involve personal growth. This contrasts with contingent, extrinsic self-esteem which is dependent upon external validation by others and is negatively associated with well-being. Nagpaul and Pang (2017) found that extrinsic, contingent self-esteem was related to materialism whereas intrinsic, contingent self-esteem was related to intrinsic concerns such as: personal growth, genuineness and congruence (p. 612). This form of self-esteem has been found to positively correlate with self-compassion, whereas extrinsic, contingent self-esteem is negatively related ( Nagpaul and Pang, 2017 ). Therefore, it is likely that self-compassion is also negatively related to materialism.

1.1. Materialism and insecurity

According to the motivational theory of materialism, the development of these traits or values is the result of “…a failure to meet higher order psychological needs, such as the formation of close loving relationships with others…” Burroughs et al. (2013) , p. 19. The lack of fulfillment of these needs leads to insecurity which people attempt to alleviate with the attainment of inanimate objects. One possible factor in the development of materialism is attachment insecurity which can lead to the replacement of attachment with people to attachment with possessions. According to Norris et al. (2012) , anxiously attached individuals are more likely to develop materialistic values. Difficulties with attachment have also been found with lack of self-compassion, instability of self-esteem and psychological entitlement ( Rothman, 2009 ; Foster et al., 2007 ; Moreira et al., 2016 ). Therefore, it is likely that highly materialistic individuals will be low in self-compassion and it is also likely that materialism will be related to a fear of compassion, both for self and for others.

1.2. Materialism and the escape from the self

Donnelly et al. (2016) apply escape-theory ( Baumeister, 1988 , 1990 ) to materialism in terms of the six stages of escape. 1. Materialism is an escape from the self in that the individual has excessively high standards and fails to reach these high materialistic aspirations. 2. This failure results in self-blame, so the central focus is upon the self. 3. This self-awareness is deemed to be aversive when the individual is aware of the failure to reach unrealistic standards. 4. Emotional distress is a consequence of this aversive state of self-awareness. 5. The individual will engage in more concrete, present-focused thinking in attempt to reduce distress. 6. Finally, according to Donnelly et al. (2016) , the more concrete thinking leads to more impulsive behavior as the higher-level thinking processes that control impulsivity are inhibited (p. 299). One central aspect of the escape theory of materialism is the notion of self-blame when the materialistic individual fails to reach highs standards of materialistic aspirations. The individual is likely to be overly self-critical and may believe that this is necessary to maintain these high standards and being more self-compassionate means lowering those standards. Therefore, escape theory would predict that materialists are lower in self-compassion.

1.3. Resistance to self-compassion

There are several reasons why individuals are resistant to self-compassion, many of these are likely to be related to materialism. According to Neff (2003) , individuals may be overly self-critical and associate self-compassion with narcissism or self-centeredness. In addition, resistance to self-compassion may be due to the belief that in order to be motivated, an individual needs to be harsh and self-critical and that being self-compassionate reduces motivation ( Neff, 2003 ). These sets of beliefs that are barriers to self-compassion may also inhibit those higher in materialism from being self-compassionate, as the materialistic individual is more likely to be self-critical, hard-driving and competitive towards materialistic goals and self-compassion may be seen as counter to these pursuits (e.g., Wachel and Blatt, 1990 ; Bauer et al., 2012 ).

1.4. Materialism and the quiet ego

Related to the notion of self-compassion is the concept of the ‘quiet ego’, which is a less competitive, less self-centered individual with more concern with connecting with others and with personal growth ( Bauer and Wayment, 2008 ). As materialistic individuals are more likely to be competitive and individualistic, it is hypothesized that the ‘quiet ego’ will be negatively related to materialism. High materialism is a trait more likely to be related to the notion of the ‘noisy ego’ whereby the individual is focused upon getting attention through material acquisition and consumption rather than upon personal development. Therefore, related concepts such as entitlement, meaning in life, subjective well-being and generativity will also be measured. Investigation of these relationships may further the understanding of the relationship between materialism and low subjective well-being.

Materialism has been conceptualized as a trait composed of possessiveness, non-generosity and envy ( Belk, 1985 ). According to this view, the materialistic individual wants to acquire and retain possessions, is not likely to share with others and is envious of the possessions that others have and wants to acquire those possessions. Richins and Dawson (1992) have defined materialism in terms of a set of values: centrality, happiness and success. Acquiring material objects is central to one's life, the path to happiness and the measure of the individual's success.

Given these two conceptions of materialism, the personality-based approach ( Belk, 1985 ) and the values-based approach ( Richins and Dawson, 1992 ), it is possible that there is a different relationship between materialism and self-compassion and the quiet ego. Therefore, both measures are used in the study.

1.5. Hypotheses

Materialism will be negatively related to self-compassion and positively related to a fear of compassion from others and for others. These relationships are likely, given the previously discussed set of possible influences on the development of materialism: socialization, self-esteem repair, escape from the self, and the possible relationship between materialism and resistance to self-compassion.

Materialism will be negatively associated with the “quiet ego” and related constructs: mindfulness, satisfaction with life and generativity. These relationships are hypothesized given the competitive, individualistic values of the materialistic individual which contrasts with the characteristics of the “quiet ego”, a less competitive individual that is more connected to others in terms of sense of self.

The second set of hypotheses concern the well-established relationship between materialism and low subjective well-being. Overall, given the theoretical arguments presented above, it is hypothesized that self-compassion and fears of compassion for self and others will mediate the relationship between materialism and well-being and therefore add to the incremental validity in the prediction of well-being with materialism.

Self-compassion will be a negative indirect mediator the relationship between materialism and well-being, generativity and meaning in life.

Fears of self-compassion will be a negative indirect mediator in the relationship between materialism and well-being, generativity and meaning in life.

The quiet ego will be a negative indirect mediator in the relationship between materialism and well-being, generativity and meaning in life.

2.1. Participants

Undergraduate participants, n = 423, completed online questionnaires in exchange for experimental credit at a medium sized Western Canadian University with a student composition of 80% non-minority and 20% visible minority students, including 6% aboriginal students. The participants had an average age of mean = 20.47, SD = 3.82 and 72.68% were female. The study was approved by the MacEwan University Research Ethics Board.

2.2. Instruments

Belk m aterialism s cale : has 24 items and provides overall materialism score and three subscales that measure: possessiveness, non-generosity, and envy. The Belk uses a (1 = never to 5 = always) Likert type scale. Belk (1985) reported Cronbach's alphas of α = .57, α = .58 and α = .64 for the subscales and an overall alpha of α = 66. In terms of temporal stability, the test-retest reliability was in the range of r = .64 for non-generosity to r = .87 for possessiveness ( Belk, 1985 ). The alpha for the full measure was, α = .61 with the current investigation. This value is in line with previous research by Richins and Dawson (1992) that found a median alpha of α = .62 with several samples. Materialism is measured more indirectly compared to other scales given that Belk's (1984) theory is that materialism is a combination of possessiveness, non-generosity and envy. This lower alpha with the Belk scale is likely due to greater item heterogeneity and a less direct method of measurement. This is a possible limitation of the study; therefore, the Material Values Scale (MVS) was used as well.

Material v alues s cale (MVS) : is a 15-item scale with an overall materialism score along with three subscales: Success, Centrality and Happiness ( Richins, 2004 ). The MVS uses a 5-point Likert scale (1 = never, to 5 = always). Examples of the items are: Success: “…I admire people who own expensive homes, cars and clothes…” ( Richins, 2004 , p. 217); Centrality: “…I like a lot of luxury in my life …” (p.217); Happiness: “…My life would be better if I owned certain things I don't have. …” (p. 218). Richins (2004) obtained an overall alpha of α = .86 and alphas of α = .77 for success, α = .73 with centrality and α = .75 for happiness.

The q uiet - e go scale : measures self-identity that transcends self-interest ( Wayment et al., 2015 ). The quiet-ego scale uses a (1 = almost always, to 5 = almost never) Likert-type format and has 14 items that measure four components: detached awareness, inclusive identity, perspective taking and growth. The quiet ego is not considered to be a personality trait but “…a set of psychosocial skills and abilities that facilitate personal growth… ( Wayment et al., 2015 , p. 1004). The authors obtained a Cronbach's alpha of α = .76 for the full scale.

Self- c ompassion s cale : Measures being kind and understanding towards oneself rather than self-critical, Neff (2003) . The 26-item scale has six scales: self-kindness, self-judgement, common humanity, isolation, mindfulness and over-identification. The test uses a 5-point Likert format (1 = never to 5 = always scale) and has two factors: (1) self-kindness: self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness and (2) self-coldness: self-judgment, isolation and over-identification. Internal consistency for the total measure is α = .92. The six subscales range in internal reliability from α = .75 for mindfulness to α = .81 for over-identification. Neff (2003) offers evidence of validity as the scale correlates negatively with depression and anxiety and positively with life satisfaction.

Fears of c ompassion s cales : Measures fear of compassion for others, fear of responding to the expression of compassion from others and fear of self-compassion ( Gilbert et al., 2011 ). The test uses a (1 = don't agree at all-to 5 = completely agree) Likert scale for the three scales. Fear of compassion from others is the fear of the affiliative emotions of warmth, affection and care that others may express when the individual is receiving compassion for others. This scale consists of 10 items, for example: “…being too compassionate makes people soft and easy to take advantage of…” (p.247). Gilbert et al. (2011) reported a Cronbach's alpha of α = .78. Fear of responding to the expression of compassion for others is a 13-item scale, for example, “…Feelings of kindness from others are somehow frightening…” (p. 247). The scale had an alpha of α = .87 according Gilbert et al. (2011) . Fear of self-compassion is a 15-item scale with an alpha of α = .85, for example “…I fear that if I am more self-compassionate I will become a weak person…” (p. 248).

Satisfaction with l ife s cale , Diener et al. (1985) . Overall life satisfaction is measured by this 5-item instrument using a (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) Likert scale. The authors reported a Cronbach's alpha of α = .87 and test-retest reliability of r = .82 over a 2-month interval. The test also shows evidence of convergent validity as Diener et al. (1985) reported moderate to strong correlations with several other measures of life satisfaction.

Meaning in l ife q uestionnaire , Steger et al. (2006) . This 10 item scale measures how important, purposeful and meaningful the respondent feels about his or her life. The test has a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) and measures two subscales: presence and search. According to Steger et al. (2006) , presence measures the “…subjective sense that one's life is meaningful…” (p.85). Search for meaning measures the motivation to find meaning in one's life. The authors have obtained good internal consistency with α's ranging from .86−.88.

Loyola g enerativity s cale , A 20-item scale measuring generativity which is the desire to aid the next generation in a variety of possible domains, parenthood, work, volunteerism etc., McAdams and Aubin, 1992 ). The test uses a (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) Likert scale and has temporal stability with a 3-week test-retest reliability of r = .73.

Psychological e ntitlement s cale , Campbell et al. (2004) . This is a nine-item scale that measures “…the experience of being deserving and entitled…” (p. 31). The scale uses a (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) Likert rating scale and the obtained alpha was α = .85. Test-retest reliability at one and two-month intervals was r = .70 and r = .72 respectively. The test also has evidence of convergent validity, e.g. correlations with narcissism and exploitativeness; and predictive validity, e.g. the scale predicts greed, aggression, selfishness in relationships.

3.1. Descriptive statistics

Descriptive statistics and gender comparisons are presented in Table 1 . MANOVA for gender differences obtained an overall significant effect with a Wilk's λ = .778, F (30,392) = 3.73, p < .01. Univariate comparisons revealed higher scores for females on possessiveness and centrality with the materialism subscales. Males had higher scores on materialistic happiness. Findings of gender differences with centrality and materialistic happiness are mixed, however, higher female possessiveness is consistent with previous findings (e.g., Watson, 2015 , 2016 ). A higher level in females and may reflect higher sentimental attachment to objects that are associated with relatives or friends ( Dittmar, 1989 ). With self-compassion, females were higher in self-coldness and lower in self-kindness, also more detachment, self-judgment and isolation and over-identification. Males were higher on self-kindness and mindfulness. These findings are consistent with Yarnell et al.'s (2015) meta-analysis, whereby females were found to be less self-compassionate, more self-critical and engage in more negative self-talk.

Descriptive statistics for all measures.

Note: Belk = Belk Materialism Scale, Poss. = Possessiveness, Non. Gen. = Non-generosity, MVS = Material Values Scale, Inclusive ID = Inclusive Identity, FcompO. = Fear of Compassion for Others, FcompR. FompS = Fear of Compassion for Self, SelfKind = Self Kindness, SelfJudge, = Self-Judgement, Chuman = Common Humanity, OverID = Overidentification, Self Comp. = Self-Compassion, Self-Cold. = Self-coldness. Generativ. = Generativity, SWLS = Satisfaction with Life Scale.

3.2. Correlational analysis

Correlations between all variables are presented in Table 2 . In support of hypothesis 1, Belk materialism was related to fear of compassion for others, fear of receiving compassion from others and fear of self-compassion. The MVS was related to fear of compassion for others. With the self-compassion scales the Belk was related to self-judgment, isolation and over-identification and negatively related to self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. The MVS correlated with over-identification, isolation and negatively related to mindfulness. In support of hypothesis 2, the Belk was negatively related to the quiet ego, generativity, meaning in life (presence), and satisfaction with life and positively related to entitlement. With the MVS, hypothesis 2 was supported with a negative relationship to the quiet ego, meaning in life (presence), satisfaction with life, and a positive relationship to entitlement.

Correlations for all measures.

Note: Correlations above r = .18 are significant with the Bonferroni correction. p = .05/171 = .0003. Belk = Belk Materialism Scale, MVS = Material Values Scale, FcompO. = Fear of Compassion for Others, FcompR = Fear of Receiving compassion from others, FcompS. = Fear of Compassion for Self, SelfKind = Self Kindness, SelfJudge, = Self-Judgement, Chuman = Common Humanity, OverID = Overidentification, Generativ. = Generativity, SWLS = Satisfaction with Life Scale.

3.3. Mediation analyses

A series of mediation analyses was conducted with the materialism measures as predictors, the well-being measures as outcome variables and self-compassion and fears of compassion as mediators (see Fig. 1 ). The analysis was done using bootstrapping with 10000 times resampling with replacement. In support of hypothesis h3 (a, b, c), all these analyses were significant indirect mediators in the relationship between materialism and indicators of well-being (see Table 3 ). The exceptions were fear of receiving compassion from another with the path of Belk to satisfaction with life and with the Belk and MVS predicting meaning in life with fear of receiving compassion from another.

Mediation analyses: materialism predicting well-being with self-compassion and fears of self-compassion as mediators.

Note: MVS = Material Values Scale, SWLS = Satisfaction with Life Scale, Self-com. = Self-Compassion Scale, Fearselfcom. = Fear of self-compassion, Fearcfrom. = Fear of compassion from another, Fearcother. = Fear of Expressing Compassion for others.

3.4. Results summary

Overall, the results are in support of hypothesis 1 as materialism was associated with lower self-compassion, correlating with the self-coldness components of: isolation, over-identification and self-judgment and negatively with mindfulness component of the self-compassion scale.

Materialism correlated with the fears of self-compassion, including compassion for others and a fear of receiving compassion from others. Hypothesis 2 was also supported with a negative relationship with the quiet ego, life satisfaction and generativity. Hypotheses 3 a through c were supported with a significant mediation effect of self-compassion, fears of compassion and the quiet ego in 27 of 30 of the mediation analyses performed.

4. Discussion

The results demonstrate the importance of self-compassion in the relationship between materialism and wellbeing as in most of the measures employed in the study, there was a mediating effect of self-compassion, fears of compassion or the quiet ego. In terms of explaining these findings, they are consistent with the four previously presented explanations for the development of materialism: the socialization pathway, the self-esteem repair pathway, the role of insecurity in materialism, and materialism as an escape from the self. As this is a cross-sectional, correlational study, none of these relationships are presumed to be causal and this can be considered an important limitation of the study. However, the findings are consistent with these theoretical accounts of the development of materialism.

With socialization, the internalization of materialistic values which are antithetical to self-compassion and compassion for others is encouraged by consumer culture ( Kasser et al., 2004 ). Kasser et al. (2004) have argued that materialistic value orientation is associated with a lack of basic psychological need satisfaction: feelings of competence, relatedness with others and with a lack of feelings of autonomy. These are attributes that are positively associated with self-compassion (e.g. Gunnell et al., 2017 ; Ying, 2009 ; Saricaoglu and Arslan, 2014 ), therefore the negative relationship between self-compassion and materialism is consistent with the socialization pathway to materialism.

The relationship between materialism and lower self-compassion and fear of having compassion for self or for others is consistent with the relative deprivation notion whereby the individual feels inadequate compared to others and therefore must focus upon attaining wealth and status in order to compensate ( Ahuvia and Wong, 2002 ). This focus on achievement and acquisition impedes the ability of the individual to have the kindness to oneself or others and the materialistic competitiveness discourages the feeling of common humanity that self-compassion entails.

In the case of self-esteem repair, the results of more self-judgment, isolation, and over- identification are consistent with this possible correlate of materialism. As Karanika and Hogg (2016 , p. 766) argue, self-esteem and self-compassion are on two ends of a coping continuum, with self-esteem involving conditional self-worth and threatening comparisons and self-compassion involving unconditional self-worth and non-threatening comparisons. When the participants in the Karanika and Hogg (2016) study were faced with reduced wages, unemployment and austerity measures, the more adaptive coping mechanism was to move away from the materialistic, consumer culture and towards self-compassion. The components of self-compassion: common humanity, mindfulness and self-kindness were all present in the participants. The results of the current research point to opposite nature of materialism and self-compassion as it is difficult to view one's own suffering in terms of common humanity if the individual is making upward social comparisons that materialism engenders.

The finding of a negative relationship between materialism and self-compassion is consistent with the insecurity viewpoint on materialism whereby when attachment to other people is inadequate, material possessions serve as a substitute ( Burroughs et al., 2013 ). The relationship between entitlement, overidentification and materialistic values particularly point to the relationship between materialism, insecurity and lack of compassion for self or others.

Escape-theory and materialism are also consistent with the results particularly, the relationship with the over-identification component of self-compassion. Overidentification has been described by Neff (2003) as when “…individuals become so immersed in their current emotional reactions that other aspects of the person – those capable of alternative emotional responses or mental interpretations, for example are inaccessible…” (p. 88). This enhanced focus on emotional reactions leads to strong negative judgments and criticism of the self.

The results fit with materialism as the ‘noisy ego’ given the association with self-judgment, over-identification, low self-kindness, negative thinking, isolation and low satisfaction with life, lower mindfulness and lower sense of common humanity. Over-identification is much like self-pity whereby an individual becomes totally focused upon themselves and their own problems and is unaware of the problems of others. These results fit with the egocentric orientation of the high materialistic individual that is dependent on the extrinsic evaluation by others based upon level of material success. The fear of compassion for others, fear of responding to the compassion for others is consistent with the lower empathy found in highly materialistic individuals (e.g., Jacobson, 2016 ; Can, 2013 ). The results also indicate higher sense of entitlement, lower satisfaction with life, lower meaning in life and generativity with highly materialistic individuals.

According to Robinson et al. (2016 ), (p. 508) individuals can be resistant to self-compassion because it violates personal values such as the stoic notion of enduring difficulty without complaint and that self-compassion indicative of weakness and self-indulgence. It may be that materialistic values are also a reason to resist self-compassion, as materialism is associated with the notion of individualism, competitiveness and harsh self-criticism to attain material goals.

With materialism and fear of compassion for others, the results are consistent with the literature on helping behavior e.g. Briggs et al. (2007) with volunteerism and Lamy et al. (2016) with helping a stranger. In both of these studies, materialism was negatively related to helping. Helping behavior is related to compassion for others, therefore it is likely that materialism is negatively related to both.

Self-compassion has been found to be related to several types of well-being in a recent meta-analysis by Zessin et al. (2015) and has also been shown to be a mediator in the relationship between several psychological factors and well-being, e.g. neuroticism and physical appearance anxiety ( Xu et al., 2017 ), self-esteem and body-image avoidance ( Stapleton et al., 2017 ), or behavior changes in well-being in 1 st year university students ( Gunnell et al., 2017 ). Therefore, the present research finding that self-compassion mediates the relationship between materialism and well-being is consistent with other domains.

In terms of possible explanations for this relationship, Breines and Chen (2012) have found that self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Those higher in self-compassion were less tolerant of personal weaknesses across several domains and more willing to engage in self-improvement efforts. In relation to materialism, self-compassion was found to reduce preference for upward social comparison. The implication being that as materialistic individuals are lower in self-compassion and therefore are less willing to correct personal faults without harsh self-criticism or over-identification associated with low self-compassion. This could be partly why self-compassion mediates the relationship between materialism and well-being. It is possible that materialists are resistant to change and are motivated by social comparison, so the highly materialistic response to personal flaws is to maintain materialistic goals rather than undergo personal change.

Self-compassion has been found to have a buffering effect upon negative self-feelings ( Leary et al., 2007 ). The literature on compulsive buying is consistent with personal distress (anxiety, depression) as triggers for impulsive buying (e.g., Otero-Lopez and Villardefrancos, 2013 ) and that materialism is a mediator in the relationship between the correlates of materialism and compulsive buying ( Islam et al., 2017 ). While materialism and compulsive buying are separate, yet overlapping constructs, it is possible that they share the function of buying to reduce distress and the maintenance of an unclear sense of self as Naguti and Bokeyar (2014) have argued.

The study is limited by the use of self-report and a young, undergraduate sample. To further validate these findings, future research should be conducted with an older sample and investigate the quiet-ego, self-compassion and materialism in an experimental context. Another important limitation is the cross-sectional nature of the study, therefore future longitudinal designs would further strengthen any possible conclusions made about the possible relationships between materialism, self-compassion and well-being.

Some of the possible implications are that increasing self-compassion may be a method for reducing materialistic tendencies and increasing well-being. Methods to reduce fear of self-compassion and fear of compassion for others could also decrease materialism and serve to increase well-being. With the results of this research, it may be possible to develop self-compassion and ‘ego quieting’ procedures that will lower materialistic tendencies. As Keng et al. (2012) have found, mindfulness-based intervention have an effect upon several forms of lower subjective wellbeing such as problems with emotion regulation, anger-suppression and fear of emotion. It is possible that this type of intervention could also reduce materialistic tendencies and increase compassion for self and others. Keng et al. (2012) suggest that mindfulness and self-compassion work hand in hand as “…mindfulness allows greater clarity in developing self-compassion, whereas self-compassion ‘clears the way’ for mindfulness by reducing attention -interfering cognitions such as negative rumination…” (p. 277).

Declarations

Author contribution statement.

David C. Watson: Conceived and designed the experiments; Performed the experiments; Analyzed and interpreted the data; Contributed reagents, materials, analysis tools or data; Wrote the paper.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

No additional information is available for this paper.

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Department of Philosophy

The waning of materialism: new essays on the mind-body problem.

Twenty-three philosophers examine the doctrine of materialism find it wanting. The case against materialism comprises arguments from conscious experience, from the unity and identity of the person, from intentionality, mental causation, and knowledge. The contributors include leaders in the fields of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, who respond ably to the most recent versions and defenses of materialism. The modal arguments of Kripke and Chalmers, Jackson's knowledge argument, Kim's exclusion problem, and Burge's anti-individualism all play a part in the building of a powerful cumulative case against the materialist research program. Several papers address the implications of contemporary brain and cognitive research (the psychophysics of color perception, blindsight, and the effects of commissurotomies), adding a posteriori arguments to the classical a priori critique of reductionism. All of the current versions of materialism--reductive and non-reductive, functionalist, eliminativist, and new wave materialism--come under sustained and trenchant attack. In addition, a wide variety of alternatives to the materialist conception of the person receive new and illuminating attention, including anti-materialist versions of naturalism, property dualism, Aristotelian and Thomistic hylomorphism, and non-Cartesian accounts of substance dualism.

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A psychologist explains why materialism is making you unhappy

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Materialists lead unhappier lives — and are worse to the people around them. And it seems that social media might be fueling materialistic attitudes, too. This is all according to a fascinating interview the American Psychological Association posted in 2014 with Knox College psychologist Tim Kasser , whose research focuses on materialism and well-being.

Here are the best bits.

Materialists are sad, terrible people:

We know from research that materialism tends to be associated with treating others in more competitive, manipulative and selfish ways, as well as with being less empathetic ... [M]aterialism is associated with lower levels of well-being, less pro-social interpersonal behavior, more ecologically destructive behavior, and worse academic outcomes. It also is associated with more spending problems and debt ... We found that the more highly people endorsed materialistic values, the more they experienced unpleasant emotions, depression and anxiety, the more they reported physical health problems, such as stomachaches and headaches, and the less they experienced pleasant emotions and felt satisfied with their lives.

People become more materialistic when they feel insecure:

Research shows two sets of factors that lead people to have materialistic values. First, people are more materialistic when they are exposed to messages that suggest such pursuits are important ... Second, and somewhat less obvious — people are more materialistic when they feel insecure or threatened, whether because of rejection, economic fears or thoughts of their own death.

Materialism is linked to media exposure and national-advertising expenditures:

The research shows that the more that people watch television, the more materialistic their values are ... A study I recently published with psychologist Jean Twenge ... found that the extent to which a given year’s class of high school seniors cared about materialistic pursuits was predictable on the basis of how much of the U.S. economy came from advertising and marketing expenditures — the more that advertising dominated the economy, the more materialistic youth were.

Materialism is linked to social media use, too:

One study of American and Arab youth found that materialism is higher as social media use increases ... That makes sense, since most social media messages also contain advertising, which is how the social media companies make a profit.

Many psychologists think that materialists are unhappy because these people neglect their real psychological needs:

[M]aterialistic values are associated with living one’s life in ways that do a relatively poor job of satisfying psychological needs to feel free, competent and connected to other people. When people do not have their needs well-satisfied, they report lower levels of well-being and happiness, as well as more distress.

Check out the whole interview at the APA's website.

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Consumer Behavior

Can we transcend materialism, marketers appeal not only to our egos—they also want us to self-actualize..

Posted February 22, 2021

It seems no company these days can sell a product without communicating its social mission or commitment to sustainability. We, as consumers, have come to expect it. This is a great triumph of 21st-century marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility efforts.

For most of the 20th century, marketing has been heavily criticized for contributing to materialism and waste. So this will be welcome news for many people. Have we transcended consumerism? The sociologist Ronald Inglehart believed that when a society achieved a certain level of wealth, consumers would stop pursuing material security and focus instead on higher needs, such as self-actualization from Maslow’s hierarchy.

Have we achieved post-materialism? I am not so sure, and the reason has to do with Maslow’s hierarchy.

This is why: Marketers understand that it is pretty easy to create desire through advertising and promotions because while our needs are limited, our desires are limitless. Such was largely the objective of the classic, “sales-oriented” era of marketing, the glory days of 1960s Madison Avenue ad agencies, as anyone who has seen Don Draper and company on Mad Men knows well. The post-war 1950s had created a large middle class and the availability of seemingly futuristic technologies that completely altered life as a consumer: Refrigerators, televisions, and automobiles became near-ubiquitous.

By this time, most Americans had the things they needed, at least in terms of their basic survival, and then some. The goal of advertising, then, was to stimulate desire: buying not out of true necessity, but out of wanting—wanting a better, newer automobile, a second television, a bigger refrigerator. Or, more likely, the desire for one company’s product over a competitor’s, or a more expensive model over a less expensive one, and so on.

The problem was that most Americans didn’t really “need” these things, at least not in any traditional sense, because they already had them. It wasn’t always that way, though. Marketers like to trace the origin of modern marketing to the industrial age, often known as the “production” era of marketing.

In the early 20th century, the emphasis on marketing activities is on making, building, scaling up, reducing costs, and creating availability of the product to consumers. It is an age of innovation and the first introduction of mass-produced consumer goods. Arguably, these inventions did dramatically improve lives for millions of people, raising many out of poverty and paving the way for the post-war middle class. Scarcity became abundance.

The post-war era created the exact conditions for a post-materialist society. But marketers were ready: Perhaps you don’t need a new car—but you do need self-esteem ! Having a newer car than your neighbor could help with that. Or perhaps you need a little love in your life. In fact, this ad for Chrysler was based on the work of Ernst Dichter, a psychoanalytic psychologist who pioneered the idea of linking desire to underlying needs as an advertising tactic.

Such advertising helped foster the materialistic values that American consumer society became known for well into the late 20th century. But some would say there has been a turning point. It is well-known that millennials and Generation Z are far less materialistic than previous generations, such as the Boomers and Gen Xers.

I see an interesting contradiction here. Given their dedication to sustainable production and efforts toward environmental stewardship, there is little question that buying a Patagonia jacket (for instance) is better for the planet. The same goes for Tesla electric vehicles. But these are expensive products, and they come along with a kind of social exclusivity that surely fuels ego.

This is not to knock Tesla and Patagonia. We need cars, and we need jackets. And we need to take better care of our planet. I greatly admire both companies, and I am the proud (and thankful ) owner of Tesla stock. I could even argue that those of us who have the means have an ethical obligation to consume in a social and sustainable way—certainly, more so than those who can least afford to do so.

I just wonder whether post-materialism is something we can truly realize. And perhaps the marketer in me is a little cynical that we can transcend materialism. Consider this North Face ad, for instance: Climbing mountains is exactly the kind of activity that should foster self-actualization.

But even if consumers are no longer jostling for the newest and best consumer goods to fuel an ego competition , marketers are adept at appealing to even our highest-level needs to sell products.

So, please, keep buying. It is the engine of our economy, and for that reason, we can truly change the world through our consumption habits. That is the beauty of capitalism. If we demand sustainable products, companies like Patagonia and Tesla will oblige.

But always ask yourself, "Why?" What need am I fulfilling? And will it help me achieve the kind of sustainable well-being fostered by self-actualization?

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396.

Inglehart, R. (2008). (2008). Changing Values Among Western Publics from 1970 to 2006. West European Politics. 31 (1–2): 130–146

Ian Norris, Ph.D. , is a consumer psychologist and professor of Marketing at Berea College. He is currently serving as a fellow of the American Council on Education.

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13.7 Cosmos & Culture

Mind, matter and materialism.

Science and philosophy have a long, complicated history.

Both are human endeavors aimed at articulating the nature of the world. But where the line between them lies depends a lot on perspective and history. Questions that once lay firmly in philosophy's domain have now fully entered the realm of science. Other issues which might seem fully covered by science retain open philosophical questions that either haunt or inform ongoing research (depending on one's viewpoint).

One of the persistent fields where philosophy retains its purchase on science is the question of consciousness. What is it? What does it depend on? What, if anything, is it reducible to? These are long-standing questions that often elicit fierce partisan responses. That partisanship was, in part, why I recently wrote an essay concerning the question of mind, matter and the perspective known as materialism. The piece appeared two weeks ago in Aeon . I'm following up, now, on some responses that essay engendered.

Materialism is the idea that all phenomena in the world are ultimately reducible to the behavior of matter. In popular discussions of consciousness, materialists often take what I call the "attitude of the sober." Mind is just computing with meat, they claim, and arguing otherwise means sliding into the domains of the wooly-headed mystic, drunk on supernatural "woo."

The point of my essay is straightforward. If one wants to claim that mind rests on matter, this must include admitting just how murky our understanding of matter is at the deepest levels. The murk at those deepest levels is the multiple interpretations of quantum physics. We do not yet have an agreed upon interpretation of quantum physics. That means we do not yet have an agreed upon understanding of what is matter and our relation to it.

Just as important, pretty much all those interpretations come with some strange ontological and epistemological baggage. Thus, each interpretation comes with its weirdness, its own departure from simple common sense ideas about reality.

Materialism's claim that it alone is the obvious, the straightforward, and the sober explanation of consciousness loses a lot of its wind from this standpoint. Why is a non-reductionist, non-materialist account for consciousness considered "crazy " but an infinite number of infinitely splitting parallel universes (part of the materialist-favored Many Worlds interpretation ) considered sober, hard-nosed science? If you want to see the argument laid out explicitly I refer you back to the original article in Aeon.

As you might imagine, there have been swift and strong reactions on all sides of the debate. And, as always, I want to say that I am really thankful for good criticism when I write a piece like this since it helps me refine my own thinking.

For example, some people countered it might be possible to explain mind in terms of matter without ever invoking the weirdness of quantum mechanics. In other words, perhaps one only needs classical Newtonian physics to explain how consciousness arises via complex information processing systems. This seems to be a point the very capable philosopher of science Massimo Pigliucci made when he said mind is a biological phenomena.

In principle, I don't have a problem with this possibility. That's because I remain agnostic as to the true nature of consciousness. It is, in fact, possible that only the "higher level" classical behavior of matter is needed to explain consciousness. On the other hand, this point has yet to be demonstrated scientifically. The trouble comes when materialists claim the reduction of consciousness to matter is "what science says." Nobody needs me to point out that the relationship between mind and matter (i.e. mind and brain) remains a cutting edge and contentious topic in philosophy and science. That means you can't just state that mind is purely a biological phenomena as if it were a scientific fact. In fact, that statement is a really a metaphysical stance. It's an assumption. It's the beginning of the argument, not the end. That's why I raised the now super-famous " Hard Problem " of consciousness. People have been arguing about it first since David Chalmers introduced it a couple of decades ago and its resolution has yet to be achieved.

Also, the logical link I draw between theories of mind and theories of matter does not rely on quantum physics as an explanation for consciousness. Some folks like Rodger Penrose have argued that quantum phenomena occurring in the brain are the root of conscious experience. I am not particularly taken by these arguments (but see this for new ideas along these lines). Instead, I point out that the irreducible democracy of quantum interpretations leaves the role of agency (i.e. the observing subject) as an open issue of contention.

Any explanation of mind is an account of "being a subject." That means quantum interpretations where the epistemological aspect of quantum physics comes to the fore make simple materialist views of consciousness a whole lot less simple. Why? Well, it's simple. If your theory of being-a-subject (i.e. consciousness) relies solely on matter, but your theory of matter can't get rid of the subject's being, then you're walking on swampy ground.

The point here is that there is an entire class of quantum interpretations that take agency very seriously. In fact, the most potent developments in quantum mechanics over the last few years come in the form of Quantum Information Theory where knowledge and knowing matter. Some of the most remarkable advances in this field like the process of weak measurement , which brings the role of the agent (the experimenter) front and center.

This doesn't mean that the Copenhagen or QBist or any other "epistemological" interpretation is correct and the Many Worlds interpretation is wrong. What it does mean, however, is anyone who grounds their metaphysics on matter needs to be honest about how swampy that ground really is.

Of course, some folks claim I am straying into religious sentiment by merely raising the point. As University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne put it in a blog post : "What Frank is making here is simply a sophisticated God of the Gaps argument, except that he uses the word 'something more than materialism' rather than 'God.'

The irony is that, like Coyne, I am an atheist. I am a naturalist believing that no aspect of the world requires supernatural intervention. But Coyne's reaction demonstrates the approach I was articulating and pushing back against:

"As I said, I'm not a physicist, so some of Frank's musings are beyond my ability to judge. But I've heard plenty of respected physicists — most recently Lawrence Krauss in his new book — argue that the so-called 'observer effect' isn't what we think it is, and isn't itself part of the laws of physics."

Lawrence Krauss is a excellent cosmologist who has done really good work. But Coyne mistakes an opinion for a scientific fact — he cites someone with his same metaphysical biases. None of us know which quantum interpretation is the correct, scientifically valid one. It's been that way for 100 years now — and that's my whole point.

Many highly respected physicists working at the frontiers of the field do wonder about the observing subject's role: Anton Zellinger , David Mermin , Carl Caves , Joe Eberly , Andrew Jordan , Chris Fuchs .

It's important to realize that even the interpretations you don't like are interesting in their own right. I am not a huge fan of the Many Worlds interpretation but I still find it fascinating and elegant in its way. And, at some point, someone might find experimental proof that it's true (which might happened for any of the interpretations).

So, in the end, it's all about being upfront about our metaphysical biases and their limits. As philosopher Roberto Unger and physicist Lee Smolin put it, our job in thinking about the world is to "distinguish what science has actually found out about the world from the metaphysical commitments for which the findings of science are often mistaken."

Metaphysical commitments are fine. We all have them. But when it comes to quantum physics and what it tell us about matter and materialism, we must work hard to distinguish what's solid ground and what is swamp.

Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described "evangelist of science." You can keep up with more of what Adam is thinking on Facebook and Twitter: @adamfrank4

Contemporary Materialism: Its Ontology and Epistemology pp 1–77 Cite as

What is Materialism? History and Concepts

• Javier Pérez-Jara 12 , 13 ,
• Gustavo E. Romero 14 , 15 &
• Lino Camprubí 16  
• First Online: 05 October 2021

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Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 447))

Despite the central presence of materialism in the history of philosophy, there is no universal consensus on the meaning of the word “matter” nor of the doctrine of philosophical materialism. Dictionaries of philosophy often identify this philosophy with its most reductionist and even eliminative versions, in line with Robert Boyle’s seventeenth century coinage of the term. But when we take the concept back in time to Greek philosophers and forward onto our own times, we recognize more inclusive forms of materialism as well as complex interplays with non-materialist thought about the place of matter in reality, including Christian philosophy and German idealism. We define philosophical materialism in its most general way both positively (the identification of reality with matter understood as changeability and plurality) and negatively (the negation of disembodied living beings and hypostatized ideas). This inclusive approach to philosophical materialism offers a new light to illuminate a critical history of the concept of matter and materialism from Ancient Greece to the present that is also attentive to scientific developments. By following the most important connections and discontinuities among theoretical frameworks on the idea of matter, we present a general thread that offers a rich and plural, but highly cohesive, field of investigation. Finally, we propose building on rich non-reductionist materialist philosophies, such as Mario Bunge’s systemic materialism and Gustavo Bueno’s discontinuous materialism, to elaborate powerful theoretical alternatives to both physicalism and spiritualism.

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Some of these philosophers, as we are going to see, used the language of traditional myth to talk about abstract philosophical conceptions; that is, they used that language as a set of rhetorical devices, along with giving traditional concepts (such as “cosmos”) a new philosophical meaning. Only a minority of them still held literal beliefs in traditional mythological elements (such as reincarnation). For that reason, although the new way of thinking that they created emerged from a specific sociocultural context (rather than appearing ex nihilo ), it had enough new and revolutionary features to be considered and classified apart.

Although Hesiod started his Theogony with an impersonal chaos (a prefiguration of later metaphysical notions), he also offered anthropomorphic explanations for the rest of natural phenomena.

According to some scholars, such as Jennifer Peck, Heraclitus’ notions of logos and God, although very similar, should not be identified, since Heraclitus’ logos is the pattern present in all things, whereas God refers to the principle of unity of opposites. It is undeniable that Heraclitus’ fragments are obscure, and often difficult to interpret; but what seems clear is that for him, the notions of God and logos , if not identical, are very similar and refer to the universal impersonal mechanism and structure of reality.

This philosopher introduced an important critique of Parmenides’ view of reality as a (Euclidean) giant sphere: since a sphere necessarily implies an outer space, reality has to be infinite .

For a full account of the atomists, with fragments, doxography and commentaries see Taylor ( 1999 ).

It is important to note that Plato talked about the Demiurge using the explicit language of myth. Since in several Dialogues Plato used other myths as allegorical teachings rather than literalist dogmas, it is also possible that his myth of the Demiurge has a non-literalist anthropomorphic reading. But while in other Platonic myths the allegorical reading is clear, in his myth of the Demiurge it is not. For that reason, it is more than likely that Plato, as Anaxagoras and Socrates before, held a real belief in some kind of personal mind that gave form to the world.

Aristotle also considered the existence of lesser “gods” who, along with the main God, move the planets, but they do so in a completely impersonal and blind way.

Although Epicurus considered Greek mythology’s gods as human fictions, he recommended his disciples to visit Greek temples and contemplate the serenity of the gods’ statues. Such activity could have psychological and ethical benefits.

The case of the relationships between Stoicism and Christianity is very interesting. Several Stoic ideas related to ethics and politics were accepted and transformed by some Christian thinkers, at the same time that they rejected Stoic metaphysics.

This is Docetism’s theological doctrine, according to which the body of Jesus was an illusion. But, despite its partial influence in other Christian communities, Docetism was soon perceived as a dangerous heresy by more powerful and popular forms of Christianity: see Wahlde ( 2015 ), Freeman ( 2011 ), and Papandrea ( 2016 ).

Through these binary oppositions between the sins generated by matter, and the virtues generated by the spirit, St. Paul did not seem no notice the theological contradiction that it was not matter, but the pure spirit of Satan who introduced evil in reality, before the creation of matter.

Even though Plato drew from the Orphic despise of matter, he did not plea for asceticism and mortification of the flesh. On the contrary, Plato encouraged good nutrition, bodily aesthetics, and sports.

Here, we use the concept of “neophobia” in Bunge’s critical sense, i.e as the metaphysical approach that denies ontological novelty in reality: “The most popular idea about novelty is that whatever appears to be new actually existed previously in a latent form: that all things and all facts are ’pregnant’ with whatever may arise from them. An early example of such neophobia is the conception of causes as containing their effects, as expressed by the scholastic formula ’There is nothing in the effect that had not been in the cause’.” (Bunge 2010 , p. 87).

According to which everything is connected with everything else through God (Bueno 1972 ).

Aquinas even defended that matter could be eternal, despite been created by God. Only by Revelation do we know that the material universe had a beginning in time: see Aquinas ( 1948 ) and Gilson ( 1960 ).

Sharing similar theological problems and concerns, these combination between negative and positive theologies also took place in medieval Judaism and Islam: see Kars ( 2019 ) and Fagenblat ( 2017 ), respectively.

The recovery of God’s anthropomorphic attributes was achieved through cataphatic theology, which sought to understand God in positive terms, emphasizing the divine attributes that we can find through the Revelation.

Hume’s (and, later, Stuart Mill’s) psychologism is different in that it can be considered an even softer version of this hypostatization of the psyche. Both authors downplay the organic and operational side of human existence, along with reducing abstract concepts, ideas and relations to psychological processes. But the independence of the mind respect of the nervous system is not held; it just suggested as a possibility.

Kant’s pure categories of the understanding are: unity, plurality, and totality for the concept of quantity; reality, negation, and limitation, for the concept of quality; inherence and subsistence, cause and effect, and community for the concept of relation; and possibility–impossibility, existence–nonexistence, and necessity and contingency, for the concept of mode (see Kant 2008 [1787]; Heidegger 1997 [1929]; and Strawson 2018 ).

It is well-known that Kant ( 2015 [1788]) introduced this God again in the Critique of Practical Reason as a postulate for moral action. But this does not contradict that, from an epistemological point of view, Kant held that the Christian God was just an idea.

Russell ( 1972 [1945]), p. 718.

Russell ( 1972 [1945]), p. 718. Russell also contended that “Modern philosophy begins with Descartes, whose fundamental certainty is the existence of himself and his thoughts, from which the external world is to be inferred. This was only the first stage in a development, through Berkeley and Kant, to Fichte, for whom everything is only an emanation of the ego. This was insanity, and, from this extreme, philosophy has been attempting, ever since, to escape into the world of every-day common sense.” Russell ( 1972 [1945]), p. XXI.

Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre was later reworked by Fichte in various versions. The most well-known version of the work was published in 1804, but other versions appeared posthumously.

That is, for Fichte, absolute reality cannot be (as Schelling will defend later) both subjective and objective.

The concept of Tathandlung reminds of Husserl’s Leistung . But Husserl’s transcendental idealism did not deny the Kantian “thing in it self” as Fichte did; it just placed it between brackets: see Pérez-Jara 2014 .

This book was published thanks to Kant’s support. As such, it was briefly mistaken by the public to be a fourth Kantian Critique. This confusion granted Fichte a considerable philosophical fame.

Important to note is that Schelling’s lectures on positive philosophy were attended by personalities such as Engels, Bakunin, Kierkegaard, and Humboldt.

The World as Will and Representation ’s first edition was published in late 1818, with the date 1819 on the title–page. In 1844, a second edition appeared. This edition was divided into two volumes: the first one was an edited version of the 1818 edition, while the second volume was a collection of commentaries about the ideas expounded in the first volume. In 1859, at the end of Schopenhauer’s life, a third expanded edition was published.

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of sexuality brilliantly anticipates many hypotheses of evolutionary biology: see Pérez-Jara ( 2011 ).

Schopenhauer agreed with Schulze’s critique of Kant’s contradictory use of causality. For Schopenhauer, the thing in it self (i.e., the Will) is not the cause of our sensations. Rather, our sensations are a (non-causal) manifestation of the Will.

Here, we use the concept of organoleptic in its usual meaning of relative to our sensory experiences, so the “organoleptic world” is the set of phenomena, from the taste of wine to the colors of the sky, filtered through our sense organs.

For a very interesting philosophical analysis on this topic, see: Bueno ( 1972 ), pp. 50, 52, 60, 72, 283, 288.

Jarochewski ( 1975 ), p. 168.

Bunge ( 2010 ), p. 127.

Notable exceptions can be found in the work of J.C.C. Smart, Graham Nerlich, and Hugh Price who worked extensively on the ontology of spacetime and related problems.

On the other hand, Bunge ( 2010 ) opposed both approaches, because for him there cannot be states or events without entities. Romero, however, points out that materialist ontologies based on concrete things or particular events are formally equivalent (Romero 2013 , 2016 ): to consider things or events as basic is rather a matter or taste and not of fact.

Bunge ( 2010 ), p. 148.

It would also be interesting to wonder if these philosophers, in their daily lives (or even in their lectures and conferences) exclusively use complex neuroscientific terminology each time that they want to express that they feel tired, forgot something, feel disappointed, or are hungry.

Also, see in this volume his chapter and his discussion with Javier Pérez-Jara.

While Bueno himself referred to his system as “philosophical materialism” in the 1970s, as he was seeking to differentiate it from historical materialism, that conceptualization is too general and common to other philosophies; in later works, Bueno spoke of “discontinuous materialism”.

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Pérez-Jara, J., Romero, G.E., Camprubí, L. (2022). What is Materialism? History and Concepts. In: Romero, G.E., Pérez-Jara, J., Camprubí, L. (eds) Contemporary Materialism: Its Ontology and Epistemology. Synthese Library, vol 447. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89488-7_1

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4.1: Materialism and Behaviorism (HEATHER SALAZAR)

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INTRODUCTION

In stark contrast to Cartesian substance dualism is materialism. Materialism denies the existence of a “mind” as an entity separate from the body. According to materialism, the concept of “mind” is a relic of the past from before a time of scientific understanding and when used today is only properly shorthand for “brain” or “behavior.” Materialism therefore implies that: 1. There are no pure minds or souls in Heaven, Hell, or any such kind of afterlife after bodily death; 2. There are no spirits or immaterial essences, and therefore spiritual and self-transformative practices that purport to move people beyond their bodies, brains, and behaviors are absurd; and 3. Reincarnation and switching bodies (made famous in movies such as  Switching Places ,  Freaky Friday , and  Big ) are nonsense. A mind just is a body or a body’s behaviors; without a body a mind cannot exist.

Consider the movie  Big . In it, a kid named Josh makes a wish to be “big” during an eerie encounter with a fortune-telling machine at a state fair. When he wakes, he is a 35-year-old adult and is unrecognizable to his mom. He convinces his best friend that he really is Josh and his best friend helps him to get a job and an apartment. Nevertheless, he cannot manage to grow emotionally enough to inhabit his new world. He frustrates his close female friend who cannot understand why he does not want to be romantic with her. According to the standard interpretation of stories like  Big , a person’s mind contains memories, love, fears, and so on. This is what constitutes the core of who a person really is. The mind is immaterial and cannot be seen; it can only be experienced by the person whose mind it is. But a person’s mind is also connected to a body, which enables the person to communicate and interact with others in the world. Some bodies have minds (like other people) and some do not (like rocks). A body is incidental to a person’s selfhood; it is just a house for the mind. So it is possible that a body can age and have the same mind. And this is what happens to Josh. Eventually, Josh finds the strange fortune-telling machine and wishes to be a boy again, and he re-enters his kid-body, now with the knowledge and wisdom he gained in his transformative journey.

Big  is a fantasy, but it trades on common beliefs about what a person is (an immaterial mind) and what a body is (a material house for a mind which is incidental to a person’s true identity). Note that if dualism is false and the body and mind are not two, but one, as materialism claims, then a person could not have the same mind in a vastly different body (or even in a slightly altered body). This is because every change in the memories, emotions, and experiences of a person would not take place in an immaterial mind, but rather would be translatable to talk of the body, the interactions of the body with the world, or as many materialists claim, talk of the brain.

Take what it would mean in  Big  for Josh to change according to such a materialist understanding. Imagine that it is possible to induce rapid aging in a person through an entirely physical process (say, the taking of a pill that speeds up a person’s metabolism and turnover of bodily cells), such that overnight Josh ages by ten years. Even then, the turnover of those cells would have changed his mind just as much as it changed his body. But if his mind is identical and reducible to his brain, then his mind would (of logical necessity) be changed just as much as his body. This is evident through Leibniz’s Law (also called the “indiscernibility of identicals”), which is a metaphysical truth that simply states that if something is identical to something else it must be identical in every way (or else it would not be the  same  object, but merely a  similar  object). That means Josh’s mind would no longer be that of a boy; rather, he would have the mind of a man. Romantic desires would no longer be foreign to him (as they are in the movie) because the biological chemicals, such as testosterone, that are responsible for aging him into a man with a beard are the same chemicals that are responsible for creating sex drives. His biochemistry would be changed and so would his energy levels and emotions. Furthermore, his brain mass would be larger, since a person’s brain grows in the process of aging from childhood to adulthood. That additional brain mass would entail not only different biochemicals, but also more and differently connected neurons. Those are the same neurons and connections, materialists claim, that are responsible for the development of concepts, language, understanding, and so on. So if Josh woke up with his body transformed into a man, then his mind would be changed just as much. He could not possibly wake up with the same mind he had as a boy, according to a materialist.

The story of  Big  is not just impossible; it is nonsense. The fact that people easily make sense of the story and readily suspend their disbelief shows just how deeply ingrained dualist assumptions of the body and mind are. Our ignorance and ability to be misled by fantasies, however, does not show that materialism is false. Instead, the materialist will state, it shows we are gullible and that intuition is not a reliable guide to the truth. If we were more sophisticated in our ability to grasp reality,  Big  would seem unbelievable and incomprehensible.

There are many different versions of materialism and behaviorism. This chapter will introduce some of the most common motivations for embracing it and some of the most important historical developments of it.

EMPIRICISM AND SCIENCE AS REPLACEMENT FOR GOD

The scientific revolution began in the mid-sixteenth century and the progress of science throughout the nineteenth century made science a proven method of quick advancement for knowledge. Some philosophers, such as David Hume (1711-1796), argued that people should “reject every system … however subtle or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation” (Hume [1751] 1998). He and those who agree are called empiricists. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) (who argued for substance dualism) and John Locke (1632-1704) had philosophical theories that tried to forward philosophical views within science, then called mechanical philosophy, which sought to find explanations that were subject to physical laws. Whereas Descartes was a rationalist, relying on principle, Locke was an empiricist and relied on experience (constituting evidence). Both Descartes and Locke had to prove that their theories were consistent with God and the religion of the time (which in Europe was Christianity); however, later theorists either left God completely out of the picture or tried to show from a theoretical basis that there still was a place for God in science.

Some of the important foundations of science, such as the closure principle and the primacy of the empirical over the theoretical, were prominent in philosophy, as well. In the sciences, experiments and theories rely centrally on the closure principle, which states that material objects have causes and effects that are locatable in the physical world. Without this principle, there would be no reason to do scientific research. Instead of claiming that the cause of a disease is a virus, we could just as easily claim that it is caused by God’s wrath or a demonic force. This slowly caused people to rethink their ideas of the existence of God. If God was no longer needed to explain the things that we experience in the world—if science could do it completely without the use of God—then why do we need to believe in the existence of God?

An empiricist will readily point out that you cannot see God, nor can see your mind. You may be able to see someone else’s brain if you witness a surgeon operating on someone, but you cannot see anyone’s mind, including your own. And according to the principle of closure, something that is immaterial cannot affect something that is material, so the brain or other physical things are more properly the cause of our actions, not some mystical immaterial substance of the mind.

The principle of Ockham’s Razor—named after William of Ockham (1285-1347), a philosopher from the middle ages—states that when something of a different kind (in this case, immaterial things) is not needed to explain something else (material things), then it can be eliminated. Favored in the sciences, Ockham’s Razor is an explanatory principle of parsimony, and it gave philosophers a justification to remove God and other items that could not be seen (like minds) from their ontological status as real (separate) objects. Instead, talk of minds and mental events, such as thoughts and feelings, are simply shorthand expressions for processes in the body and world that science helps people to understand. It is therefore reasonable, they thought, that either minds really are just bodies or else minds do not exist. Ockham’s Razor became the battle-cry of the new materialist brand of philosophers, scientists, and psychologists in the modern era and even today.

MATERIALISM

Some philosophers who worked in the same time period as Descartes and Locke, such as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), began to follow a theory generally called materialism or physicalism, which states that all there is in the world and in us is material, and there is nothing immaterial. The mind had historically been conceived as immaterial with immaterial properties, such as thinking, believing, and desiring. Hobbes, however, insisted that the mind—and even God—must be material. When I think of a cat and you think of a cat, we think of the same concept (we assume), but how can we  know  that, and communicate with confidence, when there is nothing physical in the thought? How is it the case that we can ever verify that we are thinking of the same thing? Under materialism, if there is no such thing as an immaterial mind then what was previously called “thinking” must instead be explained by the body, the interactions of the body in the world, or more simply in modern materialism, the neurological firings of the brain. What we think of as thinking is an action of the body, and what we think of when we think of concepts such as “cat” is anchored in the material world of sense perception.

Type identity is a materialist theory that asserts that all mental states are identical to certain types of physical states. Contemporary proponents J. J. C. Smart (1920-2012) and U. T. Place (1924-2000) explained that science will reveal to us through experiments which kinds of mental states are equivalent to which kinds of physical processes in the brain. Note that a correlation between two kinds of states does not show that they are identical: a mental one of love and a physical one of more available serotonin in the brain, for example. Also, a physical event under type identity cannot be said to cause a mental one. Being hugged by someone does not cause a feeling happiness; rather it is an example of a physical action that causes certain nerves in the skin to send signals to the brain and create a sequence of firing that is identical to a feeling of happiness. Both correlation and causation assume that there are two events of different kinds that are related. Under materialism, there is just one kind of thing, so while it may appear that a mental and a physical event are related, the mental event is identical to the physical event. It is important to refrain from these errors when speaking about materialism.

Brain scans reveal the physical processes that happen in the brain when people commonly experience seemingly mental events, giving credence to the type identity theorist’s assertion that mental and brain events are just the same thing. A well-known example is that of the experience of pain, a kind of mental event that appears to be an immaterial feeling. The type identity theorist states that pain just is the completely physical event of C-fibers firing in the brain. When C-fibers fire, a person is in pain. Sometimes a person may not be fully aware of the pain they have, say, for example, if their attention is elsewhere or if another neurological process is covering up a subjective experience of pain. Imagine a person who gets struck in the head by a large rock. He is in fact injured and C-fibers fire in the brain, but then the person becomes unconscious. That is not to say he is not in pain; he is just unaware of it. Or say that a person gets attacked by a shark in the ocean and succeeds in fending it off. She is bleeding and is injured, but the ocean is so cold that her extremities are numb. In this case, there is a different physical process that is either postponing or covering up C-fibers firing, and therefore her experience of pain will be delayed until she is out of the cold ocean.

There have been numerous attacks against type identity theory that are so successful that many identity theorists have changed their account. One of the most devastating objections is based on the observation that different kinds of brains can realize pain. Animals surely experience pain like we do, but most animals have dramatically different brains, connections, and biochemicals than we do, so mental events like pain cannot be categorically reduced to a particular human brain kind of event. Hilary Putnam (1926-2016) astutely argued that this observation, called the multiple realizability of the mental, should lead us to abandon any supposed identity of kinds between the mental and the physical (Putnam 1967). Any account of mental events must explain how similar mental events appear to take place across a wide range of physical beings. We might even imagine beings from a distant planet who are silicone-based instead of carbon-based that also experience pain even though their systems have no physical similarities whatsoever to human brains and neurological events. This argument has led many to embrace a different account of the identity or reduction of the mental to the physical. In order to avoid this criticism, for example, token identity theories purport that all mental events reduce to a physical brain state, yet claim the identity is not necessarily instantiated by the same or similar brain states between people, or even within a single person at various times. Expositions of this theory vary and can often cross into other theories of mind, such as functionalism and property dualism, so they will not be discussed here.

Despite most theorists’ discouragement of the arguments against type identity theory, there is a more radical materialist theory that embraces even more counterintuitive conclusions. Instead of taking on the explanatory burden of connecting the identity of mental and brain events, these theorists claim that everything is purely physical. There are no thoughts, no emotions, no minds. Everything is just an effect of brain and other physical processes. This kind of materialism is called eliminative materialism or reductive materialism because it states not only that the mind and the world should be explained consistently and within science as Descartes and Locke agreed, or that the mind should be seen as part of the physical realm as the type identity theorists do, but that there simply is no mind. Contemporary proponents of eliminative materialism Paul Churchland and Patricia Churchland explain our perceptions of the world according to neurology. An eliminative materialist would say that the feeling of pain is an illusion. We have become habituated to call certain things pain when at bottom there are only physical events happening. In discussions with the Dalai Lama, Patricia Churchland claims that she cannot say she even has the emotion of love toward her own child (because love is an illusion) and the beliefs of ordinary people who say there are such things as love and other emotions are false (Houshmand, Livingston, and Wallace 1999). Folk psychology, the theory of mind that embraces intuitions by the “common folk” who are uneducated about science, is merely a convenient myth .

Eliminative materialism is the most extreme view opposing substance dualism. The eliminative materialist truly eliminates the existence of minds, and with them, all of the features of mentality. They reject experiences, thoughts, and even actions. Therefore, although eliminative materialism explains everything within a scientific framework, it does so at the great cost of our intuitions, thoughts, feelings, and selves. Indeed, it eliminates most of what a theory of mind intends to understand. Many philosophers claim that Ockham’s Razor has gone too far if most of what we intended to explain gets dismissed entirely. An account of the mind that brings back more of the features of normal life and explains those within a scientific framework is preferable to preserve the life and meaning of what people think, do, and say.

BEHAVIORISM AND THE LOGICAL POSITIVISTS

In the empiricist tradition, a different movement attempted to situate the mind within the realm of the material world, not through the identity of the two but through the explanation of the mind completely in terms of physical behaviors and events. Logical behaviorism claims that mental events (like pain) are to be understood as a set of behaviors (saying “ouch,” screaming, or cringing after being hit). In this way, pain is entirely explainable within a concrete scientific framework that can be observed and communicated clearly between all beings.

The logical positivists (spanning from the Vienna Circle in 1922 through the 1950s in the United States) thought that if they could mimic the methods of the sciences that philosophical advances would also be imminent. Those such as Otto Neurath (1882-1945) and Rudolph Carnap (1891-1970) performed rigorous analyses to show that the mind and other non-observable and non-scientifically verifiable objects did not exist, and that those things we thought were immaterial could be constructed from completely material objects and processes. Some argued that all talk of immaterial objects or processes should be eliminated from our language. Their impact was tremendous and the terrain of Western philosophy shifted toward philosophy of language throughout the twentieth century. The period of logical positivism is also known as “the linguistic turn” (of the century). Some of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and W. V. O. Quine (1908-2000), were closely aligned with the Vienna Circle and logical positivism.

The logical positivists appeared to have a solution for the dilemma concerning the meaning of what people say and the integration of the mental within the physical. Instead of rendering everything involving the mental illusory or false, mental talk can be translated and should be translated into talk of behavior. The mind therefore becomes encapsulated within the realm of action. The argument goes like this: we do not need to eliminate all talk of our minds or our thoughts, and we do not need to say that all things involving such subjects are false. It is just that the meanings of all of those words and thoughts are not what they seem at first. What these words really are is a kind of shorthand for things that are all empirically observable, and most importantly, our behaviors. After all, we cannot see our thoughts and it seems like what we have always really meant by our talk of the mental we have created from observations of behavior. When I say, “Mom is angry,” what I mean is that she is acting in such and such a way, not smiling, furrowing her eyebrows, not talking much, and so on. In this way, many of the things that we say come out true, and they all rely on empirical evidence—the evidence that we have always been gathering from the behavior of people. According to the logical behaviorist, if mental talk cannot be translated into behavior talk, then that particular mental talk is meaningless, just like Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem “Jabberwocky.” The poem sounds grammatical and it resembles real words: “Twas bryllyg, and the slythy toves,” it begins (Carroll and Tenniel 1872). People often have interpretations and emotional reactions to it, but it does not mean anything. Logical behaviorists believed poetry, art, and much of literature fell into this camp. It was entertaining but meaningless.

The logical behaviorists soon became overrun by possibly the most decisive objections in the history of philosophy. Whereas most philosophical positions refine themselves and carry more or fewer adherents, logical positivism and logical behaviorism had such devastating objections of inconsistency leveled against them that adhering to them became nearly impossible. There are two theoretical objections that were particularly damaging for logical behaviorism. The first depends on the principle of verificationism. Many of the logical positivists, including Carl Hempel (1905-1997), held a theory whereby all truths relied on their verification, either analytically (in virtue of their meanings, or by definition) or synthetically (not in virtue of their meanings, which, for Hempel indicated that they were true by experience) (Hempel 1980). Rudolph Carnap, though a member of the Vienna Circle, realized that verification was too stringent a demand to be met by any proposition, and he spent a good portion of his philosophical career trying out different criteria to rescue the theory from the criticism. As argued by Hilary Putnam, the principle of verification itself could not be verified and it was therefore “self-refuting” (Putnam 1983). Second, behaviorists were unable to provide the necessary and sufficient behavioral conditions required for translating talk about minds into talk about behaviors. In fact, Peter Geach (1916-2013) gave an objection to logical behaviorism that eliminated any kind of definition of beliefs or other mental states purely in terms of behaviors. Everything that a person does, or is disposed to do, depends on the person’s beliefs and desires, so defining one belief in terms of certain actions just prolongs the problem of defining it, since the actions used to define it will make reference to yet other beliefs and desires. The account is therefore circular (Geach 1957, 8).

Another objection argues that behavior is both unnecessary and insufficient to account for what people mean by their use of mental concepts. The success of this objection affects the strong version of logical behaviorism (and usually the view to which people refer) which states that there are necessary and sufficient conditions within behavior to define mentality. To refute this view, focusing on the sufficiency of the behavior, a critic must find cases where there is behavior that mimics the existence of minds but where there is no mind. Ned Block, for example, said that puppets controlled via radio links by other minds outside the puppet’s hollow body would mimic a mind working but is not a mind working (Block 1981). To refute the other side, that behavior is necessary for mentality, which could be seen as a weaker form of behaviorism if accepted without the sufficiency condition, the critic needs to find examples where there is thinking going on, but without the behavior. This is more difficult. Disembodied minds or thinking objects, if they exist, could constitute counterexamples. Hilary Putnam argued that we can imagine a world in which people experience pain but are conditioned to disguise their pain behaviors (Putnam 1963). Our ability to coherently think of such a world shows that pain is not conceptually and necessarily tied to behaviors, even if in our world we most often experience them contingently connected (see Chapter 5). Ludwig Wittgenstein, regarded as a champion for the logical positivists and the behaviorists, himself eventually turned away from a behaviorist-like theory to a theory that relied on thoughts as separate and independent from our descriptions of them.

Today, materialist and behaviorist views enjoy prominence in the sciences, but not in philosophy. Biologists and neuroscientists are working hard to uncover the mysteries of behavior and the brain. Each time they learn more information, they help build a better basis for a purely empirical philosophy of mind. But empirical research alone will never be sufficient to ground a materialist or behaviorist theory of mind. Both the radical theory of eliminativism (which intends to show that the mind does not exist) and non-reductive identity theories (which propose that mental events are always the same as physical events) still require persuasive philosophical arguments to show that minds are redundant or unnecessary in our ontology. Scientists themselves rely on self-reports of feelings and thoughts even while they conduct studies attempting to show that the mind can be reduced to the brain. An evolution in our ways of studying the body and the brain that do not rely on self-reports of feelings and thoughts seems a long way off.

The problem is that evidence of the workings of the body and brain, no matter how advanced, can never in itself establish a definite reduction of the mind to the body and the brain. Science alone cannot demonstrate the equivalence of the mind to the body or brain. Thus far, Ockham’s Razor has not yet successfully shaved off the necessity of talk about minds for most philosophers. One day, an evolution in human ways of relating to ourselves and each other may rely less on feelings and thoughts and more on reactions and behaviors. Perhaps, it may be observed, the human condition was once like that, more instinctual in origin. Even if this is true, observations of the origin of human life do not indicate that our current human condition is entirely material. Some may argue that an evolution towards reliance on an immaterial mind marks progress in our species. Others may argue that the evolution of a seemingly immaterial mind shows the sophistication of brain. The debate will likely continue until talk of immaterial minds appears to be unnecessary.

Block, Ned. 1981. “Troubles with Functionalism.” In  Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of  Science IX , ed. C. Wade Savage, 261-325. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Carroll, Lewis and John Tenniel. 1872.  Through the Looking-Glass: And What Alice Found  There . London: Macmillan.

Geach, Peter. 1957.  Mental Acts: Their Content and Their Objects . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Hempel, Carl. 1980. “The Logical Analysis of Psychology.” In  Readings in Philosophy of  Psychology , ed. Ned Block, 1-14. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Houshmand, Zara, Robert Livingston, and B. Alan Wallace, eds. 1999.  Consciousness at the  Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism . Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications.

Hume, David. (1751) 1998.  An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals , ed. Tom L. Beauchamp, 1.10. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Putnam, Hilary. 1983. “Philosophers and Human Understanding.” In  Realism and Reason:  Philosophical Papers, Vol. 3,  184-204. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Putnam, Hilary. 1967. “Psychological Predicates.” In  Art, Mind, and Religion , eds. W. H. Capitan and D. D. Merrill, 37-48. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Putnam, Hilary. 1963. “Brains and Behaviour.” In  Analytical Philosophy , ed. R. J. Butler, 1-19. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.

FURTHER READING

Churchland, Paul. 1989.  A Neurocomputational Perspective . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Churchland, Patricia. 1986.  Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hempel, Carl. 1966.  Philosophy of Natural Science . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Putnam, Hilary. 1975.  Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ryle, Gilbert. 1949.  The Concept of Mind . London: Hutchison.

Quine, W. V. O. 1966. “On Mental Entities.” In  The Ways of Paradox . Random House.

Searle, John. 1997.  The Mystery of Consciousness . New York: The New York Review of Books.

Sellars, Wilfrid. 1956. “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.” In  The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychology and Psychoanalysis: Minnesota Studies in the  Philosophy of Science  (Volume 1), eds. Herbert Feigl and Michael Scriven, 253-329. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Essay on Materialism

Materialism refers to a collection of personality traits. The contemporary world is full of people who possess materialistic trait. They have a belief that owning and acquisition of the right properties is the vital ingredients of happiness. These people think that success is judged by the things individual possesses. Philosophers and theologians have been complaining for long that materialism is contrary to moral life. More often the goal of gaining material wealth is regarded as empty and in result it prevents a person from being involved in a normal life. The consequences of pursuing materialistic lifestyle are the inability to reach the state of happiness in one’s life. The empirical studies, carried out to find the correlation between happiness and materialism , have confirmed negative correlation between the two.

Being materialistic is bad, as it leads to the creation of the world of difference in the way people treat other human beings. The materialistic people hardly treat others as their equals and often go extra mile to show off their wealth . They hardly care about anyone but themselves and frequently tend to exploit and trample people through the process of a dog eat dog world. It is, therefore, important for people to follow the teachings of the Bible and become moral. The little things we possess, we need to share with the poor as this will ensure equality in the society. Materialism nurtures corruption and causes the society to be impoverished.

Materialistic people use every available means to ensure that the rest of the people in the society remain poor. The aspect of materialism is more pronounced in the third world countries, where leaders are driven by greed and in the process embezzle public funds to maintain their status.

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