Wartości rodziców i tendencje materialistyczne dzieci
Parent’s values and children’s materialistic tendencies

Summary/Abstract: Following the autodetermination theory research, we can conclude that social environment may lower people’s well-being by enhancing the pursuit for extrinsic goals, inconsistent with human nature. Socioeconomic situation of the family, parental style of the mother, lack of communication in the family, divorce or lack of the father are indicated as sources of children’s materialism. The aim of the paper is to answer the following questions: Are parental values linked with children’s materialistic tendencies? If yes, how are they linked? Children and their patents were surveyed (study 1 — children age and parents, M = 10,5, study 2 — children age M = 4,85 and mothers). Children were asked about their associations with a happy person and about their materialistic aspirations. Parents filled the following value scales: Rokeach Value Survey (study 1) and Schwartz Portret Values Questionnaire (study 2). The results show that mothers of materialistic children valued ‘happiness’ (study 1) and ‘power’ (study 2) more than mothers of non-materialistic children, whereas they valued ‘mature love’ (study 1) and ‘tradition’ (study 2) less than mothers of non-materialistic children. There were no differences between fathers of materialistic and non-materialistic children (study 1). However, in the group of materialistic children the values of their mothers and fathers differed. The fathers valued ‘mature love’ and ‘pleasure’ higher than the mothers whereas they valued ‘happiness’ lower than the mothers. The results imply that values of mothers pursuing extrinsic goals may be linked with materialistic tendencies of their children.

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