Who doesn’t love a new Louis Vuitton LVMUY, +0.61% bag, a ride in a luxurious BMW BMW, -0.48% and the latest pair of Chanel sunglasses? Potential new friends, that’s who.
Status symbols, like the trendiest pair of shoes and accessories, make people appear less socially attractive, according to new research published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. Scientists conducted six studies where participants evaluated who they would want to befriend as well as how they would present themselves to potential new pals. The latter chose higher status items to present themselves, but those evaluating these new acquaintances preferred the people with lower or “neutral” status symbols.
“We may be wasting billions of dollars on expensive status symbols that ultimately keep others from wanting to associate with us,” Kimberlee Weaver Livnat, a researcher at the University of Haifa in Israel, said.
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Respondents appeared to believe that a T-shirt from an expensive store would be more likely to impress. The researchers provided participants with the choice of two plain T-shirts, one that said “Walmart” WMT, -0.66% in plain script and one with “Saks Fifth Avenue.” More than three-quarters of participants presenting themselves as new friends chose to wear the Saks Fifth Avenue shirt, whereas only 64% of those looking for new friends preferred the person wearing the Walmart shirt.
Luxury items may not bode well for romantic relationships either. Men who opt for the flashier things in life, like fast cars and a penthouse apartment, are perceived as more interested in short-term hook-ups and affairs than marriage, according to a study published last May in the academic journal Evolutionary Psychological Science.
The study asked two groups of undergraduate students to rate two fictional men on their dating and parenting skills, interest in a relationship and attractiveness to others. The first fictional character spent $20,000 on a reliable car, whereas the second spent $15,000 on his car and used an additional $5,000 to add larger wheels, a paint job and a sound system. Both men and women equated the man with the flashier car with a higher interest in brief sexual relationships and gave him a low rating as a life partner.
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Whether it’s a wallet or a designer bag worth thousands of dollars, people crave luxury goods as a symbol of wealth and power. The world’s 100 largest luxury goods companies reported $217 billion in sales in 2016, up 1% on the previous year, according to Deloitte’s “Global Powers of Luxury Goods” report. The entire luxury goods market has “bounced back from economic uncertainty and geopolitical crises, edging closer to annual sales of $1 trillion at the end of 2017,” the report said.
One solution for status-conscious Americans: Choose a non-fashion brand to get your message across. As part of a recent promotion, people who signed up for a $12 New Yorker subscription received a free canvas tote bag with the magazine’s name on it. The plain cotton bag was dubbed 2017’s “it” bag by a London fashion editor. The tote is far from a fashion statement, but was considered by some to be a potent symbol of literacy, cultural awareness and interest in the world, experts said at the time.
The good news: The latest study suggested that status symbols may help for networking, the researchers said. At the very least, they said they wouldn’t hurt.
