Tim Kasser
Biographic Data
| ID | 156396 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tim Kasser |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tim |
| FAMILY NAME | Kasser |
| SIGNATURE | KASSER T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Knox College |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4864-3630 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 956 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
A public opinion survey of four future scenarios for Australia in 2050
An Experimental Laboratory Test of the Effects of Alternative Indicators of Progress
Overcoming societal addictions: What can we learn from individual therapies
Societal addiction therapy: From motivational interviewing to Community Engaged Scenario Planning
Openness to experience predicts intrinsic value shifts after deliberating one’s own death
Individual differences that might moderate processes of value shifting during and after deliberating one's own death remain largely unexplored. Two studies measured participants' openness and relative intrinsic-to-extrinsic value orientation (RIEVO) before randomly assigning them to conditions in which they wrote about their own death or dental pain for 6 days, after which RIEVO was assessed again up to 12 days later. When participants confronted…
Integrating psychobiography into psychology’s mainstream: Introduction to the special section
Psychobiography, the intense study of a particular person, has long existed at the fringes of mainstream psychology. This special section is comprised of two articles that take important steps to integrate psychobiography into the mainstream of psychology. Schultz and Lawrence (2017) do so by reviewing recent examples of how contemporary psychobiographers have used empirically supported methods and theories to reach conclusions about the individu…
Materialistic Values and Goals
Materialism comprises a set of values and goals focused on wealth, possessions, image, and status. These aims are a fundamental aspect of the human value/goal system, standing in relative conflict with aims concerning the well-being of others, as well as one's own personal and spiritual growth. Substantial evidence shows that people who place a relatively high priority on materialistic values/goals consume more products and incur more debt, have …
Growing Up under Corporate Capitalism: The Problem of Marketing to Children, with Suggestions for Policy Solutions
Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of development suggests that children are affected by the economic system under which they live. Corporate capitalism is one such economic system, and evidence suggests that the focus on profit and power characteristic of deregulated, competitive forms of capitalism can suppress how much citizens prioritize the values that support the nurturing of children. One manifestation of this capitalist ideology is the pra…
Changes in materialism, changes in psychological well-being: Evidence from three longitudinal studies and an intervention experiment
The relationship between materialism and personal well-being: A meta-analysis
This meta-analysis investigates the relationship between individuals' materialistic orientation and their personal well-being. Theoretical approaches in psychology agree that prioritizing money and associated aims is negatively associated with individuals' well-being but differ in their implications for whether this is invariably the case. To address these and other questions, we examined 753 effect sizes from 259 independent samples. Materialism…
The relationship between materialistic values and environmental attitudes and behaviors: A meta-analysis
Generational Changes in Materialism and Work Centrality, 1976-2007: Associations With Temporal Changes in Societal Insecurity and Materialistic Role Modeling
We examined whether culture-level indices of threat, instability, and materialistic modeling were linked to the materialistic values of American 12th graders between 1976 and 2007 ( N = 355,296). Youth materialism (such as the importance of money and of owning expensive material items) increased over the generations, peaking in the late 1980s to early 1990s with Generation X and then staying at historically high levels for Millennials (GenMe). So…
Mortality Salience Increases Defensive Distancing From People With Terminal Cancer
Based on principles of terror management theory, the authors hypothesized that participants would distance more from a target person with terminal cancer than from a target with arthritis, and that this effect would be stronger following mortality salience. In Study 1, adults rated how similar their personalities were to a target person; in Study 2, participants arranged two chairs in preparation for meeting the target person. Both studies found …
Americans Recommend Smaller Ecological Footprints When Reminded of Intrinsic American Values of Self-Expression, Family, and Generosity
Extrinsic values for money, image, and status are known to be associated with less sustainable ecological attitudes and to be relatively high among American citizens. But America also has a long history of prioritizing the intrinsic values of self-expression, family, and helping the world to be a better place, aims which past studies show promote more sustainable environmental behaviors. We therefore tested whether activating these types of Ameri…
Longitudinal Pathways between Maternal Mental Health in Infancy and Offspring Romantic Relationships in Adulthood: A 30‐year Prospective Study
Longitudinal pathways between maternal mental health in infancy and offspring romantic relationship outcomes in adulthood were examined using a 30‐year prospective longitudinal study of 196 mothers and their children. Structural equation modeling revealed that maternal mental health at 30 months was related to offspring relationship status and relationship attachment insecurity at 30 years. The adolescent variables of offspring mental health and …
Cultural Values and the Well-Being of Future Generations: A Cross-National Study
Cultural values may influence the extent to which nations care about the well-being of current and future generations of children. The author used archival data to examine this possibility in a sample of 20 wealthy nations. As predicted, after controlling for national wealth, a general pattern was evident such that the more a nation prioritized Egalitarianism versus Hierarchy values and Harmony versus Mastery values, (a) the higher was children's…
Differences in Life Satisfaction and School Satisfaction Among Adolescents From Three Nations: The Role of Perceived Autonomy Support
Past research shows that higher well-being is reported by adolescents who live in individualistic rather than collectivistic nations. Such cross-national differences may be due to the amount of autonomy support adolescents receive from authority figures. To examine this hypothesis, in the current study, 322 adolescents from Denmark, South Korea, and the United States completed self-report surveys that assessed adolescents' school and life satisfa…
Psychological Need Satisfaction, Personal Well-Being, and Ecological Sustainability
This article presents a need-based theory to explore the potential compatibility of ecological sustainability and personal well-being. Relevant theoretical and empirical evidence is reviewed to demonstrate how ecological degradation can interfere with the satisfaction of needs for safety/security, competence, relatedness, and autonomy, thus causing lower well-being, and how ecologically sustainable environments and behavior can promote satisfacti…
When what one has is enough: Mindfulness, financial desire discrepancy, and subjective well-being
Some Benefits of Being an Activist: Measuring Activism and Its Role in Psychological Well‐Being
Do activists lead happier and more fulfilled lives than the average person? Two online surveys using a sample of college students (N = 341) and a national sample of activists matched with a control group (N = 718) demonstrated that several indicators of activism were positively associated with measures of hedonic, eudaimonic, and social well‐being. Furthermore, in both studies, activists were more likely to be “flourishing” (Keyes, 2002) than wer…
Some Costs of American Corporate Capitalism: A Psychological Exploration of Value and Goal Conflicts
Psychology rarely examines the effects of economic systems on people's 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 Schwartz, S. H. 1996. “Values priorities and beh…
Does autonomy increase with age? Comparing the goal motivations of college students and their parents
Why do Adolescent Girls Idolize Male Celebrities
Girls often idolize male celebrities, but this phenomenon has been studied little. The authors therefore assessed celebrity idolization among 142 junior high school girls and found that girls who strongly idolized a male celebrity had more experience dating, reported secure and preoccupied attachments to same-age boys, and were rated higher in materialism. Higher idolizers also engaged in more interactive and sedentary activities. Girls who stron…
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, …
Are Psychological and Ecological Well-being Compatible? The Role of Values, Mindfulness, and Lifestyle
A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration
Aspiring for financial success is an important aspect of capitalist cultures. Three studies examine the hypothesis that values and expectancies for wealth and money are negatively associated with adjustment and well-being when they are more central to an individual than other self-relevant values and expectancies. Studies 1 and 2 use 2 methods to show that the relative centrality of money-related values and expectancies is negatively related to c…
What is satisfying about satisfying events? Testing 10 candidate psychological needs
Three studies compared 10 candidate psychological needs in an attempt to determine which are truly most fundamental for humans. Participants described "most satisfying events" within their lives and then rated the salience of each of the 10 candidate needs within these events. Supporting self-determination theory postulates (Ryan & Deci, 2000)--autonomy, competence, and relatedness, were consistently among the top 4 needs, in terms of both their …
Are Psychological and Ecological Well-being Compatible? The Role of Values, Mindfulness, and Lifestyle
Some Benefits of Being an Activist: Measuring Activism and Its Role in Psychological Well‐Being
Do activists lead happier and more fulfilled lives than the average person? Two online surveys using a sample of college students (N = 341) and a national sample of activists matched with a control group (N = 718) demonstrated that several indicators of activism were positively associated with measures of hedonic, eudaimonic, and social well‐being. Furthermore, in both studies, activists were more likely to be “flourishing” (Keyes, 2002) than wer…
Coherence and congruence: Two aspects of personality integration
The relations of maternal and social environments to late adolescents' materialistic and prosocial values
Organismic theories and recent research suggest that environments that do not support growth and self-expression are associated with valuing financial success relatively more than affiliation, community feeling, and self-acceptance. This prediction was investigated in a heterogenous sample of 18-year-olds using a variety of methods and informants. Teenagers who rated the importance of financial success aspirations relatively high compared to othe…
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals: Their Structure and Relationship to Well-Being in German and U.S. College Students
The Urge to Splurge: A Terror Management Account of Materialism and Consumer Behavior
This article presents terror management theory (TMT) as a way to understand how the human awareness of death affects materialism, conspicuous consumption, and consumer decisions. The pursuit of wealth and culturally desired commodities are hypothesized to reinforce those beliefs that function to protect people from existential anxieties. Following a brief overview of TMT and research, evidence is reviewed that explicates how intimations of mortal…
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. Kasser's (1995, 1998) two goal-based measures of personality integration. E. Erikson's (1963) assumptions regarding maturity were the basis for the hypothesis that older people…
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, …
Materialistic values and well‐being in business students
We explored whether values focused on money, image, and popularity are associated with lowered well‐being, even in environmental circumstances supportive of such values. To this end, we administered three widely used measures of a materialistic value orientation to 92 business students in Singapore. As expected, those students who had strongly internalized materialistic values also reported lowered self‐actualization, vitality and happiness, as w…
The relationship between materialism and personal well-being: A meta-analysis
This meta-analysis investigates the relationship between individuals' materialistic orientation and their personal well-being. Theoretical approaches in psychology agree that prioritizing money and associated aims is negatively associated with individuals' well-being but differ in their implications for whether this is invariably the case. To address these and other questions, we examined 753 effect sizes from 259 independent samples. Materialism…
Goals, Congruence, and Positive Well-Being: New Empirical Support for Humanistic Theories
Although some have suggested that humanistic theories and quantitative methodologies are inherently contradictory, this article will try to demonstrate that they can be quite complementary. To this end, the authors will review their own findings with regard to the nature of “positive motivation,” research that has been based in humanistic theoretical ideas but that also has employed state-of-the-art quantitative methodologies, longitudinal design…
Cultural Values and the Well-Being of Future Generations: A Cross-National Study
Cultural values may influence the extent to which nations care about the well-being of current and future generations of children. The author used archival data to examine this possibility in a sample of 20 wealthy nations. As predicted, after controlling for national wealth, a general pattern was evident such that the more a nation prioritized Egalitarianism versus Hierarchy values and Harmony versus Mastery values, (a) the higher was children's…
When what one has is enough: Mindfulness, financial desire discrepancy, and subjective well-being
Differences in Life Satisfaction and School Satisfaction Among Adolescents From Three Nations: The Role of Perceived Autonomy Support
Past research shows that higher well-being is reported by adolescents who live in individualistic rather than collectivistic nations. Such cross-national differences may be due to the amount of autonomy support adolescents receive from authority figures. To examine this hypothesis, in the current study, 322 adolescents from Denmark, South Korea, and the United States completed self-report surveys that assessed adolescents' school and life satisfa…
A public opinion survey of four future scenarios for Australia in 2050
The dreams of people high and low in materialism
Growing Up under Corporate Capitalism: The Problem of Marketing to Children, with Suggestions for Policy Solutions
Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of development suggests that children are affected by the economic system under which they live. Corporate capitalism is one such economic system, and evidence suggests that the focus on profit and power characteristic of deregulated, competitive forms of capitalism can suppress how much citizens prioritize the values that support the nurturing of children. One manifestation of this capitalist ideology is the pra…
Does binge eating play a role in the self-regulation of moods
Integrating psychobiography into psychology’s mainstream: Introduction to the special section
Psychobiography, the intense study of a particular person, has long existed at the fringes of mainstream psychology. This special section is comprised of two articles that take important steps to integrate psychobiography into the mainstream of psychology. Schultz and Lawrence (2017) do so by reviewing recent examples of how contemporary psychobiographers have used empirically supported methods and theories to reach conclusions about the individu…
Does autonomy increase with age? Comparing the goal motivations of college students and their parents
Why do Adolescent Girls Idolize Male Celebrities
Girls often idolize male celebrities, but this phenomenon has been studied little. The authors therefore assessed celebrity idolization among 142 junior high school girls and found that girls who strongly idolized a male celebrity had more experience dating, reported secure and preoccupied attachments to same-age boys, and were rated higher in materialism. Higher idolizers also engaged in more interactive and sedentary activities. Girls who stron…
Societal addiction therapy: From motivational interviewing to Community Engaged Scenario Planning
Openness to experience predicts intrinsic value shifts after deliberating one’s own death
Individual differences that might moderate processes of value shifting during and after deliberating one's own death remain largely unexplored. Two studies measured participants' openness and relative intrinsic-to-extrinsic value orientation (RIEVO) before randomly assigning them to conditions in which they wrote about their own death or dental pain for 6 days, after which RIEVO was assessed again up to 12 days later. When participants confronted…
Employee and Supervisor Ratings of Motivation: Main Effects and Discrepancies Associated with Job Satisfaction and Adjustment in a Factory Setting 1
Research and theory on employee job satisfaction and well‐being has increasingly concentrated on both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors. According to self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985). autonomy, relatedness, and competence are three intrinsic psychological needs that, if fulfilled in the workplace, will lead to greater satisfaction, performance, and general well‐being. This study examines employee and supervisor perceptions…
A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration
Aspiring for financial success is an important aspect of capitalist cultures. Three studies examine the hypothesis that values and expectancies for wealth and money are negatively associated with adjustment and well-being when they are more central to an individual than other self-relevant values and expectancies. Studies 1 and 2 use 2 methods to show that the relative centrality of money-related values and expectancies is negatively related to c…
The relations of maternal and social environments to late adolescents' materialistic and prosocial values
Organismic theories and recent research suggest that environments that do not support growth and self-expression are associated with valuing financial success relatively more than affiliation, community feeling, and self-acceptance. This prediction was investigated in a heterogenous sample of 18-year-olds using a variety of methods and informants. Teenagers who rated the importance of financial success aspirations relatively high compared to othe…
Coherence and congruence: Two aspects of personality integration
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 one's 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 …
Pursuing Personal Goals: Skills Enable Progress, but Not all Progress is Beneficial
Although goal theorists have speculated about the causes and consequences of making progress at personal goals, little longitudinal research has examined these issues. In the current prospective study, participants with stronger social and self-regulatory skills made more progress in their goals over the course of a semester. In turn, goal progress predicted increases in psychological well-being, both in short-term (5-day) increments and across t…
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 themselv…
Is value-free science possible
Is value-free science possible
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals: Their Structure and Relationship to Well-Being in German and U.S. College Students
Does binge eating play a role in the self-regulation of moods
The dreams of people high and low in materialism
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. Kasser's (1995, 1998) two goal-based measures of personality integration. E. Erikson's (1963) assumptions regarding maturity were the basis for the hypothesis that older people…
Goals, Congruence, and Positive Well-Being: New Empirical Support for Humanistic Theories
Although some have suggested that humanistic theories and quantitative methodologies are inherently contradictory, this article will try to demonstrate that they can be quite complementary. To this end, the authors will review their own findings with regard to the nature of “positive motivation,” research that has been based in humanistic theoretical ideas but that also has employed state-of-the-art quantitative methodologies, longitudinal design…
What is satisfying about satisfying events? Testing 10 candidate psychological needs
Three studies compared 10 candidate psychological needs in an attempt to determine which are truly most fundamental for humans. Participants described "most satisfying events" within their lives and then rated the salience of each of the 10 candidate needs within these events. Supporting self-determination theory postulates (Ryan & Deci, 2000)--autonomy, competence, and relatedness, were consistently among the top 4 needs, in terms of both their …
The High Price of Materialism
A study of how materialism and consumerism undermine our quality of life. In The High Price of Materialism, Tim Kasser offers a scientific explanation of how our contemporary culture of consumerism and materialism affects our everyday happiness and psychological health. Other writers have shown that once we have sufficient food, shelter, and clothing, further material gains do little to improve our well-being. Kasser goes beyond these findings to…
Personal Goals and Psychological Growth: Testing an Intervention to Enhance Goal Attainment and Personality Integration
We hypothesized that semester goal attainmentprovides a route to short‐term psychological growth. In an attempt to enhance this process, werandomly assigned participants to either a goal‐training program or to a control condition.Although there were no main effects of program participation on later goal attainment, importantinteractions were found. Consistent with a “prepared to benefit” model,participants already high in goal‐based measures of p…
Materialistic values and well‐being in business students
We explored whether values focused on money, image, and popularity are associated with lowered well‐being, even in environmental circumstances supportive of such values. To this end, we administered three widely used measures of a materialistic value orientation to 92 business students in Singapore. As expected, those students who had strongly internalized materialistic values also reported lowered self‐actualization, vitality and happiness, as w…
Psychology and Consumer Culture: The Struggle for a Good Life in a Materialistic World
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…
Materialistic values: Their causes and consequences.
The High Price of Materialism
The Urge to Splurge: A Terror Management Account of Materialism and Consumer Behavior
This article presents terror management theory (TMT) as a way to understand how the human awareness of death affects materialism, conspicuous consumption, and consumer decisions. The pursuit of wealth and culturally desired commodities are hypothesized to reinforce those beliefs that function to protect people from existential anxieties. Following a brief overview of TMT and research, evidence is reviewed that explicates how intimations of mortal…
Why do Adolescent Girls Idolize Male Celebrities
Girls often idolize male celebrities, but this phenomenon has been studied little. The authors therefore assessed celebrity idolization among 142 junior high school girls and found that girls who strongly idolized a male celebrity had more experience dating, reported secure and preoccupied attachments to same-age boys, and were rated higher in materialism. Higher idolizers also engaged in more interactive and sedentary activities. Girls who stron…
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, …
Psychology (40 works) · Social Psychology (30 works) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (24 works) · Developmental psychology (13 works) · Materialism (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (12 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Sociology (12 works)