Study On The Influence Of The Mode Of Getting Rich On Conspicuous Consumption ——The Mediating Role Of Status Anxiety And Downward Comparison

Under the social background of increasing economic inequality and widening gap between the rich and the poor,the psychology and behavior of the high social class has been paid more and more attention by people and researchers.This article will focus on the high social and economic class source of wealth,will be divided into ways to get rich overnight or the accumulated rich,discusses the relationship between the two different ways to get rich at the same time with conspicuous consumption and material consumption,as well as the subjective social status,status anxiety and social comparison（including upward comparison and downward comparison）as the role of internal psychological mechanism.In studies 1,2and 3,an intersubject design was used to manipulate the ways of becoming rich using text descriptions and pictures.A pair of 128 subjects were tested to explore the relationship between the modes of getting rich and material consumption after manipulating the modes of getting rich.The results showed that study 1 was successful in manipulating the mode of getting rich,but did not find any effect on material consumption.In the second study,131 subjects were tested to explore the relationship between the modes of getting rich and conspicuous consumption.The results show that the mode of wealth manipulation is successful,the mode of wealth has a significant marginal impact on conspicuous consumption,and has a significant impact on the dimension of conspicuous consumption group belonging to consumption.The study involved three pairs of 132 participants who manipulated how they became rich and measured their subjective social status,status anxiety,social comparison,and conspicuous consumption.The results show that the mode of wealth manipulation is successful,and the mode of wealth has a significant impact on conspicuous consumption,and status anxiety and downward social comparison play a mediating role.Based on the results of the three experimental studies,this paper did not find the influence of the way of getting rich on material consumption,but used different scales to measure the conspicuous consumption,and repeatedly verified the influence of the way of getting rich on the conspicuous consumption,and status anxiety and downward comparison played a mediating role in this relationship.