Cultivating sustainability consciousness through mindfulness: An application of theory of mindful-consumption

Achieving sustainable development is a significant hurdle that societies around the world face in the present era. The on-going global discourse on sustainability revolves around the dual objective of developing sustainability consciousness while fostering social and economic progress. However, despite its relevance to humankind, little is known about the mechanisms and boundary conditions that explain what influences an individual's sustainability consciousness. To fill this void, we borrow from the theory of mindful-consumption and explain why and how mindfulness impacts sustainability consciousness. Besides, given that material wealth is experiencing an unprecedented boom, we examine the moderating role of materialism on the aforesaid relationship. Demographic factors such as age (Gen Y vs Gen Z) and gender (male vs female) were also employed as moderators in the study. A sample of 726 was collected through a survey instrument and analysed using SMART PLS to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings reveal that there is a significant positive relationship between mindfulness and sustainability consciousness with materialism acting as a significant moderator. The model relationships did not vary across the two generational cohorts (Gen Y and Gen Z) significantly. The results further revealed that the impact of materialism was stronger for females than males, depicting gender to be a significant moderator on the proposed relationships. The current work is among the very few studies that empirically validate the influences of mindfulness on the entire gamut of sustainability (including environmental, economic, and social aspects); and has major implications for academicians, practitioners, and policy makers passionate about sustainability.     

Materialism and conspicuous consumption in China: a cross‐cultural examination

With the growing rise in consumer spending and economic power in Asian societies, it is increasingly important to explore the implications of these developments on consumer culture. This cross‐cultural study first discusses the rise of materialism and conspicuous consumption in post‐revolution China then examines differences in these phenomena between young adult consumers, aged 18–35, living in urban China and the United States. Utilizing survey data from over 600 respondents, significant differences were found in both materialism and conspicuous consumption, with Chinese young adults scoring higher in both variables. The findings show, that compared with past comparative studies, it appears both materialism and conspicuous consumption are on the rise among urban Chinese consumers.     

Materialism through the eyes of Polish and American consumers

The research applies the Material Values Scale (MVS; Richins and Dawson, 1992) cross-culturally by comparing materialism among Polish and American business students. Cultural differences (e.g., greater humanistic/collectivistic/Christian values in Poland) suggest lower MVS scores for Poles than for Americans. This prediction is consistent with the Local Culture hypothesis (i.e., that a strong local culture results in maintenance of traditional values in defense against global forces). Contrary to predictions, data suggest no Polish-American materialism differences, a finding consistent with the globalization hypothesis (i.e., increasing globalization leads to relatively uniform worldwide materialism). As a precursor to hypotheses testing, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tests the construct validity and cross-cultural validity of the MVS. The findings suggest substantial difficulties with the scale that limit the confidence in conclusions based on the scale. Based on these findings, future research discussion aims at developing a measure of materialism with potentially greater construct validity for cross-cultural applications.     

浅析马克思世界历史理论的当代价值

马克思世界历史理论是唯物史观的有机组成部分,在马克思的思想体系中居于重要地位.在世界多极化和经济全球化的背景下,研究马克思世界历史理论对于丰富和深化唯物史观的内容,指导发展中国家在全球化进程中趋利避害以及促进人的全面地发展具有重大的理论和现实意义.     

Intrinsic factors affecting impulsive buying behaviour—Evidence from India

The goal of this research is to examine the effect of five intrinsic factors, namely, personality, culture, materialism, shopping enjoyment tendency, and impulsive buying tendency on impulsive buying behaviour. Using structural equation modeling, responses from 508 consumers in the different parts of India’s National Capital Region were analysed and results showed that while the three constructs of materialism, shopping enjoyment tendency, and impulsive buying tendency had significant positive relationship with impulsive buying behaviour, the cultural construct of collectivism and two personality constructs of extraversion and conscientiousness too showed significant relationship.The study assumes immense significance because it not only presents useful insight regarding the behaviour of Indian consumers in an ever developing retail sector in India, but also considering the fact that this is the first time an attempt has been made to assess the simultaneous impact of these five intrinsic factors on impulsive buying behaviour. Importantly, the findings also revealed that the influence of intrinsic variables on impulsive buying behaviour did not vary across gender.     

Materialism,fashion consumers and gender: a cross‐cultural study

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among materialism, gender and fashion consumer groups from two countries – one representative of an individualistic culture (US) and one representative of a collectivistic culture (Korea). Participants were 397 students from a university in Korea (n = 221) and a university in the US (n = 176) who completed the questionnaire. The materialism construct showed adequate reliability for participants in both cultures. Fashion change agents scored higher on materialism (centrality and success) than fashion followers. Females scored higher on materialism than males which seemed to be based on higher scores on the centrality subscale. Participants from the US and Korea differed on all three subscales of materialism with US participants scoring higher on centrality but lower on success and happiness than Korean participants. The findings of this study provide valuable implications for fashion marketers and retailers in Korea and US. The findings are limited to Korean and US consumers and cannot be generalized to other cultures. This paper fills a gap in the literature by comparing materialistic values between genders and fashion consumer groups in an individualistic culture (US) and a collectivistic culture (Korea).     

列宁对俄国资本主义发展的经济史考察及其方法论特色——读《俄国资本主义的发展》

19世纪末 ,列宁继承马克思等经典作家对欧洲 ,尤其是对英国资本主义发展的经济史考察的传统 ,运用马克思主义的基本经济理论 ,对俄国农奴制改革以来资本主义在工业、农业部门的发展进行了经济史的考察和分析 ,不仅阐明了马克思主义的一些基本原理 ,大大发展了马克思主义 ,而且是列宁领导俄国革命的理论和现实依据。 2 0世纪 4 0年代 ,毛泽东对近代中国社会发展阶段和社会性质的考察和分析 ,提出新民主主义理论 ,可以看作是马克思、恩格斯、列宁的这一经济史考察传统的继承和发扬。     

生物教学中突出德育的研究

学校教育必须把德育工作放在首位,结合教材的具体内容,适时的进行“三热爱”教育、辩证唯物主义教育、环境保护教育。     

How do materialists choose prominent brands in emerging markets?

Materialism is a worldwide phenomenon. However, our knowledge about the effect of materialism on consumer brand choice is limited. This study unlocks the path from materialism to brand prominence focusing on fashion, quality, and price consciousness. Our findings within the Chinese context show that the paths from materialism to fashion, quality, and price consciousness are positive. Further, we found that the paths from fashion and quality conscious to brand prominence are positive, while the path from price conscious to brand prominence is negative but not significant. These findings have significant implications for brand managers in emerging markets.     

The effects of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism on consumer behavior toward economical versus luxury product categories,goods versus services product types,and individual versus group marketplace scenarios

The paper builds on and extends the current understanding of materialism by investigating the effects of two forms of materialism (i.e., possession- and social inclusion-defined) on consumer behavior (i.e., purchase and patronage) toward products of different categories (i.e., economical versus luxury) and types (i.e., goods versus services) in different marketplace scenarios (i.e., individual versus group). Using data partitioning on a random sample of 323 consumers to generate usable cases for three interrelated studies, the paper reports that the effects of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism are consistently accentuated in the purchase of luxury goods rather than economical goods, whereby consumers with high levels of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism are more likely to purchase luxury goods than consumers with low levels of possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism. However, the paper finds that possession- and social inclusion-defined materialism have no significant effects on the individual and group patronage of economical and luxury services. The paper concludes with the implications of these findings for theory, practice, and future research.