Tim Kasser

Further Examining the American Dream: Differential Correlates of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals

Empirical research and organismic theories suggest that lower well-being is associated with having extrinsic goals focused on rewards or praise relatively central to ones personality in comparison to intrinsic goals congruent with inherent growth tendencies. In a sample of adult subjects (Study 1), the relative importance and efficacy of extrinsic aspirations for financial success, an appealing appearance, and social recognition were associated with lower vitality and self-actualization and more physical symptoms. Conversely, the relative importance and efficacy of intrinsic aspirations for self-acceptance, affiliation, community feeling, and physical health were associated with higher well-being and less distress. Study 2 replicated these findings in a college sample and extended them to measures of narcissism and daily affect. Three reasons are discussed as to why extrinsic aspirations relate negatively to well-being, and future research directions are suggested.

The Independent Effects of Goal Contents and Motives on Well-Being: It’s Both What You Pursue and Why You Pursue It

The assertion that both the content of goals and the motives behind goals affect psychological well-being has been controversial. Three studies examined this issue directly, showing that both what goals people pursue (i.e., whether they strive for extrinsic vs. intrinsic goal contents) and why people pursue them (i.e., whether they strive for autonomous vs. controlled motives) make significant independent contributions to psychological well-being. The pattern emerged in between-person and within-person studies of cross-sectional well-being and also emerged in a year-long study of prospective change in well-being. Implications for prescriptive theories of happiness are discussed.

The Structure of Goal Contents Across 15 Cultures.

The authors investigated the structure of goal contents in a group of 1,854 undergraduates from 15 cultures around the world. Results suggested that the 11 types of goals the authors assessed were consistently organized in a circumplex fashion across the 15 cultures. The circumplex was well described by positioning 2 primary dimensions underlying the goals: intrinsic (e.g., self-acceptance, affiliation) versus extrinsic (e.g., financial success, image) and self-transcendent (e.g., spirituality) versus physical (e.g., hedonism). The circumplex model of goal contents was also quite similar in both wealthier and poorer nations, although there were some slight cross-cultural variations. The relevance of these results for several theories of motivation and personality are discussed.

Psychology and Consumer Culture: The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World

This book provides an in-depth analysis of consumerism that draws from a wide range of theoretical, clinical and methodological approaches. Contributors demonstrate that consumerism and the culture that surrounds it exert profound and often undesirable effects on both peoples individual lives and on society as a whole. Far from being distant influences, advertising, consumption, materialism and the capitalistic economic system affect personal, social and ecological well-being on many levels. Contributors also provide a variety of potential interventions for counteracting the negative influence of consumerism.

Of Wealth and Death: Materialism, Mortality Salience, and Consumption Behavior

Theoretical work suggests that feelings of insecurity produce materialistic behavior, but most empirical evidence is correlational in nature. We therefore experimentally activated feelings of insecurity by having some subjects write short essays about death (mortality-salience condition). In Study 1, subjects in the mortality-salience condition, compared with subjects who wrote about a neutral topic, had higher financial expectations for themselves 15 years in the future, in terms of both their overall worth and the amount they would be spending on pleasurable items such as clothing and entertainment. Study 2 extended these findings by demonstrating that subjects exposed to death became more greedy and consumed more resources in a forest-management game. Results are discussed with regard to humanistic and terror-management theories of materialism.

Some Costs of American Corporate Capitalism: A Psychological Exploration of Value and Goal Conflicts

Psychology rarely examines the effects of economic systems on peoples lives. In this target article, we set out to explore some of the costs of American corporate capitalism and its focus on self-interest, competition, hierarchical wage labor, and strong desires for financial profit and economic growth. Specifically, we apply recent cross-cultural research on goal and value systems (Schwartz, 1996; Grouzet et al. 2006), as well as a variety of other types of evidence, to demonstrate how the aims and practices that typify American corporate capitalism often conflict with pursuits such as caring about the broader world, having close relationships with others, and, for many people, feeling worthy and free. We hope that by bringing to light the value and goal conflicts inherent in this economic system, psychologists might begin to systematically investigate this pervasive yet paradoxically ignored feature of contemporary culture.

Getting Older, Getting Better? Personal Strivings and Psychological Maturity across the Life Span.

Measures of psychological maturity based on personal strivings (R. A. Emmons, 1989) were administered to 108 adults aged 17-82. On the basis of organismic-theoretical assumptions regarding maturity, age was hypothesized to be positively associated with K. M. Sheldon and T. Kassers (1995, 1998) two goal-based measures of personality integration. E. Eriksons (1963) assumptions regarding maturity were the basis for the hypothesis that older people would tend to list more strivings concerning generativity and ego integrity and fewer strivings concerning identity and intimacy. Finally, on the basis of past research findings, maturity and age were hypothesized to be positively associated with subjective well-being. Results supported these hypotheses and also showed that measured maturity mediated the relationship between age and well-being. Thus, older individuals may indeed be more psychologically mature than younger people and may be happier as a result.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals: Their Structure and Relationship to Well-Being in German and U.S. College Students

Aspirations for intrinsic (e.g.,self-acceptance, affiliation, community feeling)versus extrinsic (e.g., financial success, appearance,social recognition) goals were examined in German andU.S. college students. The structure of students’goal-systems in terms of goal content was remarkablysimilar in the two cultures, as evidenced byexamination of the ordering of goals. Also, as inpast work in the U.S., German college students whowere especially focused on intrinsic goals had highwell-being, whereas the reverse was true for a focuson extrinsic goals. Some differences between thecultures in terms of specific goals are alsodiscussed.

Contextual risk and resiliency during late adolescence.

The factors contributing to the mental health of a sample of 18-year-olds were analyzed in a hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The contribution of proximal variables such as parenting behavior, intermediate variables such as other family factors, and the more distal variables such as social class and minority status were all highly significant. Child variables were also found to make significant contributions to understanding mental health. When the sample was divided into three subsamples, white advantaged, white disadvantaged, and African American (almost entirely disadvantaged), the mental health of the African American sample was higher than that of the white disadvantaged sample. The regression coefficients fit to the whole sample underestimated the mental health of the African Americans and overestimated the health of the white disadvantaged. The parenting of the African American sample was less approving and more critical and more controlling than that of the other two samples. To investigate the correlates of resilience, pairs of subjects were contrasted who had the same mental health but differed in whether they exceeded or were less than the mental health predicted for them. None of the variables in the study differentiated significantly between the two groups.

Early Family Experiences and Adult Values: A 26-Year, Prospective Longitudinal Study

Archival longitudinal data were used to examine relations of childhood environmental factors with adult values. Parental style and family socioeconomic status (SES) were assessed when participants were 5 years old. At age 31, participants completed the Rokeach Value Survey. Results indicated that adults focused on conformity values were more likely to have restrictive parents and to have been raised in lower SES families. Age-31 self-direction values were negatively correlated with parental restrictiveness at age 5, and age-31 security values were negatively correlated with parental warmth at age 5. Results with parenting variables remained significant after controlling for both childhood and concurrent SES. The pattern of findings is consistent with organismic-based theories, which suggest that the manner in which environments support or hinder need satisfaction influences individuals’ value development.