Materialistic Depression
Above all guard against the vice of greed [for material things].
It is a grievous sickness that has no cure…. [It] is a compound of
all the evils [and]…. hateful things.
Ptahhotep, circa 2388 B.C.E. (Hilliard, Williams, & Damali, 1987, 26)
Definition. Materialistic depression is defined as a masked depression in which “people
tend to judge themselves and others by their accumulation or lack of material possessions”
(Black, Braithwaite, & Taylor, 1982, 1) such that the more (less) the material possessions, the
more (less) favorable the judgment about self or other (Azibo, 2013c). It is a mental condition
afflicting ADP in which money, material things, and the means to obtain them form the bases of
self-worth and the perceived worth of others.
Diagnosing. A list of symptoms of materialistic depression from Azibo (2013c) follows:
1. motivation to obtain expensive and designer clothing, jewelry, and status-indicative
accessories for one’s home, car, and person for reasons of self-worth and self-definition;
2. longing a lifestyle that one cannot afford;
3. committing crime and injustices to obtain money and material things longed for (as
against needed for survival);
4. dysphonia when unable to obtain or in the absence of money or material things longed
for;
5. intrapersonal and interfamilial strain and psychological distress over the urge for material
things and the ramifications of not having them and/or having to get them;
6. regarding money, status symbols, and items of conspicuous consumption as having an
inherent value above and beyond their economic value;
7. practically revering money, status symbols, and items of conspicuous consumption;
8. ascribing a halo effect or all manner of positivity to persons of means or persons
otherwise possessing the material accouterments and trappings that are thought to go with having
means;
9. feeling ashamed of oneself, family, or community because of poverty;
10. feeling better about oneself, family, or community in the sense of self- and otherjudgments based upon being well-off socio-economically;
11. living day-to-day or week-to-week because resources are exhausted in pursuit of affluent
lifestyle or keeping up the appearance of affluence;
12. intrapersonal conflict over behaving in keeping with materialistic orientation versus a
more spiritualistic or moralistic orientation;
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The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.7, no.5, November 2014
13. feeling that one is a better human being than persons who have lesser means and fewer,
less quality possessions than oneself;
14. deifying, glorifying, admiring, and striving to be like rich people just because they
happen to be rich;
15. acceptance of the idea as articulated by prosperity preachers that “God” wants you to be
rich;
16. judging one’s or another’s worth by one’s own or the other’s earning power;
17. feeling that money and affluence entitles one to trump, supersede, or disregard the
collective good;
18. having as one’s number one goal in life acquiring as much money and material wealth as
possible; and
19. desiring others to look up to and admire one’s self due to having material possessions or
means.
The presence of any 10 symptoms or perhaps as few as five held very deeply or intensely is
sufficient to diagnose. It appears that scores ranging from 7-10 on the Materialistic Depression
Quiz (MDQ), reprinted in Azibo and Dixon (1998, 223), might also be used as an indicator of
strong materialistic depression (Azibo, 2013c).