The Effect of Materialistic Value-Orientation on Religiosity in Bangladesh: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

The rising middle-class of the developing nations is found to be emphasizing more on the acquisition of goods and property in the pursuit of the good life. This often leads towards the materialistic value-orientation and form materialism. Religiosity, conversely, implies restraining from the earthy pleasure in the form of happy life, and often imposes prohibitory behavioral rules in the economic sphere. Hence, ‘Materialism’ and ‘Religiosity’ are two of the most incompatible yet dominant components of normative value-systems that are always in contention with each other. Literature is abundant to relate ‘Emotional Connection’, ‘Subjective Well-Being’, ‘Happiness’ or ‘Life Satisfaction’ with that of ‘Materialism’ and ‘Religiosity’; nonetheless, what is hardly addressed is the effect of materialistic value-orientation to the religiosity in the transitional societies. This paper investigates materialism and religiosity in the developing economy context like Bangladesh and outlines the underlying relationships between the constructs. A survey on a sample of four hundred and twelve (412) respondents using self-administered questionnaires is the source of quantitative information that is used to formulate the tentative explanations of the variables of interest. Age is considered as a moderator. A negative relationship between the level of materialism and religiosity is found, if materialism is considered as a reflective construct, and religiosity is treated as a second-order formative construct in the structural equation modeling.