Can't buy me friendship? Peer rejection and adolescent materialism: Implicit self-esteem as a mediator

Peer rejection is closely connected to adolescent materialism, and self-esteem is a mediator of this relationship. However, most previous studies have revealed only a correlational link between peer rejection and adolescent materialism, and have emphasized explicit self-esteem but not implicit self-esteem. We conducted three studies to address this weakness. Study 1a and Study 1b verified the causal connection between peer rejection and adolescent materialism by showing that participants who recalled experiences of being rejected by peers reported higher levels of materialism than those who recalled acceptance experiences. In Study 2, participants who were rejected by peers demonstrated lower implicit self-esteem and higher materialism levels than those who were not. This study also found that implicit self-esteem mediated the relationship between peer rejection and adolescent materialism. In Study 3, after experiencing peer rejection, priming high implicit self-esteem induced a decline in the participants' materialism levels, which further validated the mediating role of implicit self-esteem. Overall, these findings suggest that peer rejection boosts adolescent materialism by lowering implicit self-esteem and that materialism is a way to compensate for impaired implicit self-esteem.