Shiny Objects: Why We Spend Money We Don’t Have in Search of Happiness We Can’t Buy

Why can’t money buy happiness? Roberts, professor of marketing at Baylor University, studies why Americans believe and behave as if possessions will induce, increase, and enhance happiness—when, as studies show, materialism “negatively correlate[s]” with well-being. He examines the psychological underpinnings of our desire to purchase—even beyond our means (it’s a high “similar to that caused by drugs or alcohol... triggered by internal psychological tension and accompanied by relief and frustration”). Roberts offers a history of American consumerism, drawing parallels between different eras (e.g., the gold rush and the more recent dot-com boom), the impact of Calvinism, Henry Ford, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Vietnam War and the counterculture, and how the attacks of September 11 influenced (and usually stoked) the American mania for consumption. Roberts’s inquiry provides ample psychological and historical insights, but the book’s most valuable and unique feature is the quizzes included in each chapter. These opportunities for self-assessment—on how much we spend, how vulnerable we are to status anxiety—give readers “time, space and motivation” to examine our own relationships toward consumer culture and personal happiness. An intriguing cultural history–cum–self-help book with abundant hard scientific data. (Nov.)