We examine the extent to which income inequality is associated with materialistic values and behavior in Europe and the United States (US). In the US, existing research on materialistic behavior is largely focused on the study of shopping behavior and shows that, when income inequality is higher, individuals search for and buy products that are more luxury. In Europe, the evidence for this phenomenon is mainly based on survey questions on people’s values, and results are mixed. To determine whether these conflicting findings are rooted in methodology or reflect structural differences between the situation of Americans and Europeans, we measure materialistic behavior and values in both the US and Europe. Different types of data are used to test our arguments. In study 1, we use information on materialistic values from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the World Values Survey (WVS) to study the relationship between income inequality and materialistic values, examining the same research question in the contexts of Europe and the United States. In study 2, we use information from Google Trends to examine the relationship between income inequality and internet searching behavior both in Europe and in the United States. Hybrid multilevel models analyzing the variation in these relationships both over time and across regions show that in Europe as well as in the US, income inequality is not associated with materialistic values. However, in the US, materialistic behavior is greatly enhanced when income inequality is high. In contrast, in Europe, increasing income inequality is associated with decreasing materialistic behavior.

我们研究了收入不平等与欧洲和美国（美国）的物质价值观和行为的关联程度。在美国，现有的物质主义行为研究主要集中在购物行为的研究上，表明当收入不平等程度更高时，个人会寻找和购买更奢侈的产品。在欧洲，这种现象的证据主要基于人们价值观的调查问题，结果喜忧参半。为了确定这些相互矛盾的发现是源于方法论还是反映了美国人和欧洲人情况之间的结构性差异，我们衡量了美国和欧洲的物质主义行为和价值观。不同类型的数据用于测试我们的论点。在研究 1 中，我们使用来自欧洲社会调查 (ESS) 和世界价值观调查 (WVS) 的物质价值观信息来研究收入不平等与物质价值观之间的关系，并在欧洲和美国的背景下检验相同的研究问题。在研究 2 中，我们使用来自谷歌趋势的信息来研究欧洲和美国的收入不平等与互联网搜索行为之间的关系。分析这些关系随时间和跨地区变化的混合多级模型表明，在欧洲和美国，收入不平等与物质价值观无关。然而，在美国，当收入不平等程度很高时，物质主义行为会大大增加。相比之下，在欧洲，