Langston 1

Matea Langston
Professor Ruth Fuller
LR10- Intro to Library Research
4 October 2015
Material Things Equating Happiness
A widely held belief almost all Americans live their life by is that money can buy people
happiness. Most of society works forty plus hours a week in a field that they dont enjoy to
maximize their income as much as possible. This belief goes hand in hand with the belief that
you cannot live a happy life without x amount of profit. My paper will talk about how material
things cant buy someone happiness, as well as how this idea is destroying our environment to
the point of unsustainability. I will first break down this social construct of things equating
happiness to show the readers that the belief itself is incorrect and complement that with facts of
how we have already done damage we cannot reverse. This will then show them how dangerous
this belief, as well as over consumption can be. Im looking forward to learn how they
psychologically measure happiness, as well as how other cultures view happiness in relation to
things that can be bought.

Annotated Bibliography

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Print Source
Hurka, Thomas. The Best Things In Life : A Guide To What Really Matters. New York: Oxford
University Press, USA, 2011. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 1 Oct. 2015.
In this ebook it talks about the belief that most members of society live their life by; that
money can buy happiness. It takes an interesting approach to the problem by stating that money
can give you happiness in the comfort of not having to stress about having enough, but once you
meet your basic needs money cant do much more for your overall happiness. It also talks about
in what ways money can make you happy. For example, making more than your peers gives you
more satisfaction versus just getting a raise. They say it relates to the idea of humans adaptation
to change because whatever your pay gets raised to, turns into your new idea of normality. So if
you make x amount of dollars (your baseline) and you get a raise to y amount of dollars (your
raise), your y amount of dollars becomes your baseline and youre left unsatisfied and striving to
get z amount of dollars.
I will use this in my research paper for my concession. I will admit that in some ways
money can make you happy, but it will always fall short. I will also point out that the study
mostly shows the pattern of insatiability because even when they do obtain more money, they
still arent happy. Also, that they display happiness when making more than their peers, which
basically displays insecurity, an emotion that cant be solved just by money but by an acceptance
of yourself.
How I found this source is I went to the Solano website, (solano.edu) and I went to the
Library tab. I used the onesearch bar and typed Things (AND) happiness. Once it brought up
my results I filtered it by checking only book or ebook. I looked at the different options and read
where my key words popped up in the text and picked the most relevant one to aid my paper.

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When I clicked on it I scrolled down, and it took parts of the book that had matching terms to
what I searched.
https://ezproxy.solano.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid,uid&custid=s4302453&db=nlebk&AN=344908&site=eds-live
Article Sources
1.
Otero-Lopez, Manuel, Jose, and Estibaliz "Materialism And Addictive Buying In Women: The
Mediating Role Of Anxiety And Depression." Psychological Reports 113.1 (2013): 328344. Business Source Complete. Business Source Complete. Web. 2 Oct. 2015
In this article it talks about how materialism and addictive buying negatively affects
women because of its direct link to anxiety and depression. I can use this in my paper to talk
about the negative effects of valuing material things before I compare it with how happiness can
come from sharing experiences with people. It talks about how materialism not only fosters
addictive buying but other addictive habits like gambling, smoking, drinking, and so on. Also, I
think it will be a great example before I incorporate overconsumption affecting the earth, because
addictive buying is a source of overconsumption. Overall I think it will be a great transitioning
source to tie everything all together.
How I found this was I went to Solanos website again and I used the drop down bar on
the databases tab to select ebscohost. On ebscohost I typed in many different things to try to find
relevant sources but what finally pulled a result for me was the search Materialism alone, with
no filters. I had to scroll for a decent amount of time before I found this particular article.
https://ezproxy.solano.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid,uid&custid=s4302453&db=bth&AN=92992023&site=eds-live

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2.
Pieters, Rik. "Bidirectional Dynamics Of Materialism And Loneliness: Not Just A Vicious
Cycle." Journal Of Consumer Research 40.4 (2013): 615-631.Business Source Complete.
Business Source Complete. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.
This article talked about the cycle of materialism and loneliness, and how they foster one
another. It went into great depth about how different types of materialism will evoke a different
effect. For example, materialism for mirth is not as nearly as vicious as possession-defined
success and acquisition as the pursuit of happiness. The article says acquisition as happiness is
the most likely to cause loneliness. It also talked about socioeconomic factors and how that
affects the overall data.
I will use this in my paper by showing the negative effects of thinking material things can
buy happiness. I will also show the long term effects of how materialism causes loneliness and
loneliness is directly correlated to suicide. This will show how dangerous the idolizing of things
can truly be, which will appeal to pathos.
I found this by going to the solano website and using the onesearch tab, under the library
link. The search that pulled this article for me was materialism (AND) happiness.
https://ezproxy.solano.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid,uid&custid=s4302453&db=bth&AN=91860669&site=eds-live
3.
Finney, Sherry L. "Encouraging Sustainable Consumption: An Exploration Of Consumer
Behaviour."
Marketing Review 14.2 (2014): 189-203. Business Source Complete. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.

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In this academic article it talks more about the environmental side of my argument. It
brings into account how our consumer culture is a huge cause of our path to unsustainability and
if we change our consuming habits it can greatly aid us in making our world last longer. It also
talks about how our consumer culture was caused when we started to view economic growth as
only a good thing.
This will help me in my argument by incorporating psychological and environmental
evidence. it briefly talks about how even though most of society is able to buy the things that
give us pleasure, the marketing techniques are the cause of depression, anxiety, and obesity. I
will also use the environmental facts, and about how the culture weve created cannot be
sustained due to the fact that most people perceive happiness as getting what one wants, and we
cant always get what we want.
I found this by using the onesearch tab on the solano website, under the library link. In
the search bar I typed over consumption (AND) happiness Once I clicked on one of the
sources I used the control F key to locate specific keywords that would be applicable to my
research.
https://ezproxy.solano.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=ip,cpid,uid&custid=s4302453&db=bth&AN=99329000&site=eds-live
Website Source
Gregoire, Carolyn. "The Psychology Of Materialism, And Why It's Making You Unhappy." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 Dec. 2013. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.
In this article it talks about our consumer culture, as well as the negative psychological
effects of materialism. It has an excerpt of how excessive consumption in our culture is and even
though we have more today, we are more unhappy than the people who had less, in the past. It

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gives interesting details for example how materialism is directly linked with aggression and
competitiveness and not linked with happiness.
I went through the CARS checklist and found that this website was credible. The first C
is credibility and I was able to find an about page for the author of the article. There is a lot of
detail in the website and I could not see any times they author was intentionally being vague. The
A stands for accuracy and not only was the website up to date, but it was writing fairly recently.
The R stands for reasonableness, and I didnt sense any bias. It was factual and objective. Lastly,
the final S stands for support. The article in text citations with links where I can refer to the
studies they used. I will use this to support how materialism not only doesnt make you happy,
but makes you unhappy. I want to stress to the reader of my article that materialism can cause
long term negative effects on personal well being, while connecting it to sources that talk about
the environments well being.
I had to do different keyword searches on google and go through many different articles
before I could find a credible one. I looked up Materialism, happiness, and psychology to find
something with facts not just opinion. I found that using library databases is much easier.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/15/psychology-materialism_n_4425982.html