Racism+-+'High+Price+of+Materialism'

Racism: "High Price of Materialism" It looks like Kasser would agree with what most have known, or at least suspected for a long time: "people who strongly value the pursuit of wealth and possessions report lower psychological well-being than those who are less concerned with such aims" (365). I agree the notion that money cannot buy happiness. Money might provide the means to happiness; you need money to buy gas for road trips and to pay for food and other necessities, but the actual possession and acquiring of money don't do anything for a person's happiness. Money is a vain item that should be going to purchasing things, if a person makes money simply to get more money, essentially get success to become more successful, then they're feeding all of their emotions into an empty cycle and will come out as such: empty. I see happiness in a sense of accomplishment, but even more so in simply being with people I like. I've noticed that it's never the event, or resources that makes a person happy, it's always the atmosphere that surrounds the event; so in effect, the event could be a disaster, but if the atmosphere was light-hearted, then the event will still be remembered in a good light. When a person is after money, the atmosphere is that of greed and "more, more, more", which would put stress on a person, and stress doesn't cause happiness, it causes fatique and worry, and thus a person wouldn't be happy.

Now when it comes to psychology, surveys, and statistics, most people reject findings and theories based on the idea that there imperfect sciences that can easily flaw, get twisted, and changed relatively quickly. Kasser clearly took the time to make sure that his findings were as accurate as possible, his team conducted multiple surveys and went so far as to see if their "results would be the same in adults as they were in college students and teenagers" (369). Kasser and his team didn't just look at one group with one type of survey, get results and say "yep, that's right", they went and checked everything. Kasser's dilligence to validity is important, especially in this particular type of study since happiness is defined as so many different things and a single person's psychological conditions may not be the same across the board. Kasser made sure that his data showed sufficient trends in a wide variety of groups: age, race, gender. Kasser also saw that all possible bases were covered psychologically by using multiple surveys, differing in how they went about arriving at a conclusion, to evaluate respondents' psychological responses and conditions. I applaud Kasser because people probably would have bought his findings anyway, the follow popular belief, but to make sure he wouldn't be shot down by industries whose sole purpose is to make people think that they need to become successful and rich to be happy, he did a thorough investigation.

I thought the relation between drugs and materialism, "people with a strong materialistic value orientation were highly likely to use such substances frequently" (371), was really interesting. This means that money is in the same boat as drugs and sex, from what Kasser notes, which to me is making the argument that money, the pursuit of money, and general materialism is just as bad as a drug. I think it goes back to the vain chase; when it comes to drugs, the high only lasts so long and then the user is back out looking for more. I think it also shows that destructive behavior is, to an extent, correlated with a person's psychology. Again, that seems relatively simple, but destructive behavior could be caused by anything: genetics, desperation, depression, knowing this kind of relation could further research into preventing such behaviors. Kasser's study is also very good evidence for why drug use is bad, despite what the internet may say; his extensive research between materialism and low self-esteem means that and relation made using Kasser's study is not likely to be challenged, it's too well researched.