The New Rich Life: The Role of Life Satisfaction in Status Signaling

Due to social and economic changes such as digitalization, global mobility, and growing concerns for sustainability and social equity in most societies, luxury is dematerializing (Belk, 2020; Eckhardt et al., 2015). Luxury is becoming more about meaningful and special objects and experiences rather than conspicuous brand logos or exorbitant price tags (Bauer et al., 2011; Belk, 2020), and is shifting “from having to being" and “from owning to experiencing" (Cristini et al., 2017, p. 101). Given the dematerialization of luxury and with it the decreasing social status signaling function of luxury possessions, one can then ask, “How are people going to signal status to others without materialistic possessions such as Louis Vuitton bags, Porsche sportscars or Rolex watches?". Because, evolutionarily speaking, social status signaling motives will probably always be with us, they might just manifest differently over time and societies (Belk, 2020). Against this backdrop, some scholars have explored alternative status signals such as consuming green products or communicating nonconformity (such as wearing casual clothes in a professional setting; Bellezza et al., 2014; Griskevicius et al., 2010). However, given the recency of the social and economic changes that lead to dematerializing of luxury, this is still a relatively new literature that needs further exploration. In this project, we aim to contribute to the literature of alternative status signaling by examining whether life satisfaction might be an alternative status signal that has been overlooked so far. The project is divided into three sub-projects. Project 1 explores the basic status signaling mechanism and examines the effect of life-satisfaction signaling on social status perceptions as well as the driving forces, moderator variables and manifestations of the suggested effect. We have already conducted pre-test studies under Project 1 which have supported our main hypothesis that life-satisfaction serves as an alternative status signal. When we looked at the effect of life satisfaction on social status, we decoupled it from wealth, the latter being a well-documented status signal (Nelissen & Meijers, 2011). Our results consistently show that wealth stops signaling status when life-satisfaction is controlled for. This novel finding moved us to explore the potential explanations for this finding, which is the main focus of Project 2. Project 2 examines whether life satisfaction might be the driving force for the social signaling function of wealth. Project 3 focuses on the nature of consumption choices that might signal life satisfaction to others. Given the dematerialization trend, we will test whether experiential purchase options are better able to communicate life satisfaction than material purchase options and therefore signal higher social status. Under Project 3, we will also discover the experiential aspect of material purchases and will examine whether emphasizing the experientiality in material products in advertisements can lead to an increased inference of users’ happiness and, hence, a higher social status signaling function for the purchase. Finally, we would like to examine whether these perceptions impact purchase intentions for the product. Taken together, we believe that this project will make unique contributions to the literature of alternative status signaling.