Understanding the interrelationship between regional differences and material aspiration in the context of Indian diversity: Results of an exploratory study Available to Purchase

In the last decade, the scope of consumer research has been expanded beyond choice and decision‐making to include various behaviour parameters like the meanings of possession and materialism but that should be studied in the background of cultural differences. Consumer behaviour has been found to be affected by regional differences that come out of various geographic, topological and cultural factors including values, motives and lifestyle. These give rise to distinct subcultures and can be an important determinant of both consumption and non‐consumption behaviours. India being highly diversified, the differences in geographic subculture are hypothesised to be significant. Accordingly this present study extends the current literature and explores the interaction among cultural adherence, materialism, preacquisition dream propensity and pre‐purchase “wish list” all of which are hypothesised to be actually reflecting the influence of regional differences. The degree of materialism was found to be significantly correlated with the intensity of cultural adherence. Regional differences and cultural adherence, as a whole, was also found to be significantly related to materialism and prepurchase dreaming propensity. An interesting perspective was revealed from the content analysis of wish list. Implications of the findings for the study of materialism are also discussed.