Looking good, feeling good?

This study investigates the relationship between conspicuous consumption and happiness. Although earlier studies have demonstrated that consumption per se does not contribute to happiness, it is worthwhile to find out whether this holds for each composition of consumption. The main goal of this thesis is to examine whether conspicuous consumption can influence happiness positively and to see what influence the personality traits “materialism” and “pain of paying” have on this relationship. A survey has been distributed among 81 lawyers being employed at the Zuidas business center in Am-sterdam. The results from the ordered logit model and structural equation modeling demonstrate that conspicuous consumption can result in experiencing happy feelings more often. This effect, however, is offset by materialism: for very materialistic people, the effect of conspicuous consumption on hap-piness is negative. The results do not give rise to the conclusion that tightwad and spendthrift persons experience significantly lower levels of happiness than unconflicted individuals. Hence, this study con-tributes to earlier findings regarding the effect of consumption on happiness: for people being not too materialistic, conspicuous consumption has a positive effect on subjective well-being.