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Comparison of Mexican‐American and Anglo‐American Attitudes Toward Money
Author(s) -
MEDINA JOSÉ F.,
SAEGERT JOEL,
GRESHAM ALICIA
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of consumer affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1745-6606
pISSN - 0022-0078
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6606.1996.tb00728.x
Subject(s) - economics , psychology , keynesian economics , demographic economics , social psychology , political science
This study compared attitudes toward money of Mexican‐ and Anglo‐American consumers. Based on the Hispanic/Mexican‐American literature, hypotheses were generated for four dimensions of a money attitude scale (MAS) developed by Yamauchi and Templer (1982). Mexican‐Americans were found to have lower scores on a Retention/Time dimension that reflects willingness to delay spending money to achieve gratification. Contrary to previous studies, Mexican‐Americans were found to have lower scores on a Quality dimension, calling into question an assumption found in much of the literature that Hispanic consumers prefer high prestige goods/services. Hypotheses pertaining to Power/Prestige and Distrust/Anxiety dimensions were also not confirmed suggesting further reservations about Hispanic consumer characterizations found in the consumer behavior literature.