Philip Mazzocco, assistant professor of psychology (Mansfield), is lead author of a new study finding that a desire for expensive, high-status stuff is related to feelings of social status, not social status itself, and that helps to explain why minorities are attracted to ''bling.'' Previous research had shown that racial minorities spend a larger portion of their incomes than do whites on conspicuous consumption – buying products that suggest high status. But Mazzocco’s new study showed that whites could be induced to crave expensive, high-status products if they imagined themselves in a low-status position.

According to Mazzocco, these findings cast doubt on the notion that urban minorities have developed a corrosive “bling culture” that is unique to them.

“It is a basic psychological tendency that we all share when we’re feeling inferior in some part of our life,” said Mazzocco. “Anyone who is feeling low in status is going to try to compensate. And in our capitalistic, consumption-oriented society, one way to compensate is to buy high-status products.”

Mazzocco conducted the study with Derek Rucker, Adam Galinsky and Eric Anderson of Northwestern University. The findings appear in a recent issue of the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Mazzocco said future studies will examine whether people can resist conspicuous consumption when they call to mind parts of their lives where they feel they have high status.

Read the entire press release, courtesy of Jeff Grabmeier, Research and Innovation Communications.