Materialistic people: these are their 6 characteristic traits

This philosophy of life is based on buying and using what is bought for appearances.

There are those who base their whole life on two very basic things: what they possess and what they pretend to possess. This is the case of materialistic peoplewhose way of life is increasingly promoted by a society obsessed with money and possessions.

Now then... what are the characteristics that define materialistic people and how can they be recognized? Let's see it below.

What are materialistic people like?

It should be noted that to assess the degree of materialism is necessary to take into account the cultural and economic context in which you live.

For example, there are those who, because they were born in a rich society, live surrounded by all kinds of products. lives surrounded by all kinds of productsThis does not mean that he basically values these kinds of comforts. On the other hand, one can be materialistic and live in a very poor family, as we shall see.

Having said that, let's see what are those traits and habits of materialistic people.

1. They invest a lot in improving their appearance.

Those who make their life revolve around their resources, see their own body as a part of their property and, consequently, treat it as if it were their own. and therefore treat it as if it were a façade. In a way, they use their appearances as a capital they have at their disposal in order to have more power and more possibilities to access better standards of living.

2. They value others according to their possessions.

For the most materialistic people, other people have value according to what they ownThey value others according to what they have: a very expensive car, a good wardrobe, land, or simply money. This is because they set their socialization priorities based on the chances of having more assets by staying with those people. For example, even if someone seems to have no belongings, they may be chosen as a friend because they have contacts with important people.

3. They always seek to have more

In theory, whoever is materialistic need not always aspire to have more things; he or she should simply put possessions as a priority. However, in practice, the dynamics of consumerism that predominates in our society today especially preys on those who fit this psychological profile..

This is why materialistic people can become very anxious if they cannot access certain material goods. In the same way, they may plan purchases for months, so that during that time everything that is done has to do with that objective. In short, their life goals revolve around possessions, leaving aside experiences or dealing with others.

4. They divide people into successful or unsuccessful ones

As we have seen, materialistic people establish the value of people according to what they have. They transform this into a general principle of life in which wealth or poverty are indicators of success or failure. Whoever enjoys a lot of resources is successful, while whoever has nothing material, no contacts (i.e. the possibility of having resources in the short and medium term), has failed.

Thus, according to this point of view, each person is a project to get rich, so that some function according to objective parameters, while others do not.

5. They believe that wealth depends on individual decisions and one's own merits.

From what we have seen above derives this other characteristic of materialistic people: they believe that what one has depends only on oneself, even though this is not really the case.They believe that what they have depends only on themselves, even though this is not really the case (just look at the chances of living poor all your life simply because you were born into a family from certain regions of the planet).

Thus, materialistic people are especially insensitive to those who have few resources, since they have an excuse to despise them: they have not tried hard enough, they have not taken it seriously, they have been unambitious, they have little talent, and so on.

• You may be interested in "Just World Theory: do we get what we deserve?"

6. They invest in the brand, not so much in the utility.

In order to appear more, materialistic logic says that. sometimes it is more convenient to invest money in the brand than in the usefulness of a product.The brand is easily recognizable by everyone and is associated with certain sensations and ideas that, supposedly, speak about oneself.

Of course, companies are aware of this fact, and take advantage of it to inflate prices, sometimes far above the production cost, to exploit this virtual value subject to the desire for appearance.

Curiosity: tendency to depression

Although it is not a trait that can be easily identified in materialistic people, it is also known that they have a greater tendency towards depression. The reason for this, it seems, is that they they invest too much effort in obtaining everything they want to possess, making their life very stressful.making their life very stressful and with few moments to disconnect and enjoy the little things.