SOCIAL RANK STYLES, MACHIAVELLIANISM AND THE ATTITUDE TOWARD CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION
SOCIAL RANK STYLES, MACHIAVELLIANISM AND THE ATTITUDE TOWARD CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION19

Summary/Abstract: Conspicuous consumption describes signalling of one’s buying power in order to impress others and secure and/or preserve a favourable place in a social hierarchy. The current study, involving 200 junior and senior high school students from Serbia, examined inclination for lavish spending on brand name clothes in relation to social dominance. Our aim was to examine a predictive relation-ship between an exploitative interpersonal strategy (marked by Machiavellianism, Leadership, and Ruthless Self−Advancement), and the attitude toward conspicuous consumption. Our respond-ents with high esteem of power, emanating from the principal po-sition within a group, and prone to Machiavellianism and Ruthless Self−Advancement, had a positive attitude toward conspicuous consumption (an indirect measure of the actual behaviour). Al-though one’s attitude toward conspicuous consumption is likely to be multifaceted, our findings suggest that a positive attitude to-wards conspicuous consumption may be an accompanying ingre-dient of the opportunistic and calculating life strategy. The results indicate that conspicuous consumption is most likely embedded in the social ranking processes.

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