Correlates of Materialism among Teachers in Chandigarh

The departure point of this paper is the definition of materialism as a value as well as a trait. Materialism is seen in a negative light in the literature available on the topic. It is defined as the tendency to assign greater value to material goods and comforts as compared to the spintualvalues.Ithasbeenafodderforstudiesinvanousdisciplinesranging from philosophy, sociology, political science, and psychology. This paper attempts to investigate the relationships between materialism and life-satisfaction, self esteem. To this end, the data was collected from a sample of teachers (N=400) from colleges and universities in Chandigarh. The statistical analysts was conducted using SPSS. The techniques of Pearson Product Moment Correlation and student's t-test were employed. It was observed that people's endorsement of a materialistic lifestyle negatively correlates with their life satisfaction and self esteem. The findings of the study reveal that gender differences exist when it comes to expression of materialism as a trait comprising envy, non generosity and possessiveness. The gender differences were explored on all the variables. Males scored higher on materialism, females scored higher on self esteem and no gender differences were found on life satisfaction.