Ethnicity | Materialism | Statistics

THINGS
I read an interesting article in Psychology Today (Dec) called “Object Lessons” It was about a study made in the Chicago area with 82 families (315 individuals) and their attitudes towards “Things” or “Cherished and Valuable Objects” Their goal was to discover how and why people in urbanized America relate to things. They investigated everything from stereos, to photographs to jewelry, collectibles and sculpture. Most things had meaning as they related to people and important memories of people. But one of the most interesting observations in the article is this: “Few of the people we interviewed prized objects that symbolized an identification with any particular cultural or religious tradition. Homes in the past may have been centered around household gods, crucifixes, icons, historical pictures, flags — symbols of attachment to widely shared cultural ideals. But in our study such objects were conspicuous only by their absence. Only 7 percent of the sample mentioned religious meanings, and 9 percent ethnic ones. The article was…