Influence Of Parental Socio-economic Status And Peer Relation On Extravagant Lifestyle Among Undergraduates
Chapter One
Introduction
Extravagant lifestyle is a way of life or a style of life in which individuals spend a lot of money, especially more than necessary or even more than he/she can afford. It could also mean living a nonchalant attitude towards daily need with little or no concern towards saving. Put differently, it is a style of life where individuals make purchases that please the sense but not essential (Reyna and Farley 2010). One with an extravagant lifestyle makes decision based on his immediate wants and desires (the ‘id’ principle). We live in a very materialist’s world and sadly, Nigeria society is one that increasingly seems to favor instant gratification over hard work. (Akinwowo, 2009) with a growing number of people living well above their mean images of beautiful people living extravagant lifestyles decked in expensive designer clothing and driving state of the art cars. It is no wonder that these images are affecting the young and vulnerable generations.
Today, to say that corruption and fraudulent behavior is fast becoming an officially acceptable normative behavior among Nigerians is more or less an understatement. Studies have revealed that anecdotal and documented evidence indicates that corruption is a serious problem in Nigeria (Omoluabli, 2008, Amadi, 2007).
Precisely, the 1990’s to date are a time of unprecedented public debate on the politics legislative and psychotherapeutic issues of corrupt orientation and blatant extravagant lifestyle of some privileged Nigerian public and private office holders. In a country where many hard working senior civil servants and even people in private sector can barely make ends meet.
Two to three decades ago, Nigeria used to have value, particularly dignity of labor, zero tolerance to extravagant lifestyle and corrupt tendencies. It is unfortunate to note that today; hard work is relative and can only be sustained when is rightly positioned in that vantage position of winner takes all. Gone are those days when public and private sector workers could think of working hard and being competitively placed with colleagues at similar levels in other countries. Unlike now, people within the regular civil service could aspire to reach the top in their various area of service in order to have that sense of fulfillment (Gire, 2011). The advent of ostentatious, extravagant lifestyle of political and numerous privileged private sector office holders has done much harm to the psych of an average Nigerian.
For young Nigerians within the age bracket of 19 to 23, from the minute they step their foot in College or University, the pressure to use money and meet certain demand arises (Akinwowo 2011). This segment of the population are sometimes obsessed with the need to have an attractive car, designer clothes, trending hair style, shoes, hand bags, etc and if they don’t have the money to acquire and meet these needs based on the social demands, they are increasingly prepared to lease, borrow and in some cases will even consider doing unscrupulous things such as theft, fraud, move into relationship for materialistic purpose, abuse the purpose of friendship just to keep up the lifestyle (Akinwowo 2010).
Many young people interviewed however say that the greatest influence on their excessive spending was their peers who put pressure on them to keep spending by enticing them with material things even when they run out of money (Klein, 2014). Some young people feel socially unaccepted and will not be accepted unless their appearance conforms to the socially accepted pattern of dressing (Oropesa, 2011). It is true that our friends do have some influence on all of us in what we do, but it is of great concern if young people, undergraduates are being persuaded by their peers to spend money exceeding their average monthly expenditure in order to be socially accepted or to be identified as part of a group of higher class. Parent’s socio-economic status and their level of education have major influence on an undergraduate attitude towards money because their parent’s socio-economic status set an operational standard for undergraduate to beat (Philip, 2009).
Money management is not routinely taught in school. So, could it be the peer from where the young adults come from? Young adults (undergraduate) tend to adopt a particular lifestyle based on their parental socio-economic status. If the parents of the undergraduate are poor money managers, aim high at making extra income beyond the marginal source of income, exhibit a negative relationship of over indulgence, or directly or indirectly does not tame, control and check external source of income, their children are likely to imitate them and develop a lifestyle of excess spending (Akinwowo, 2008).
Undergraduates often equate the worth of a person with what they have acquired by way of money and material possessions such as car, Jewelry, cloths, apartment etc. If they are not able to keep up, they then feel inferior on a social level. It has become an ugly way of life as it puts us in a precarious position as we fail to recognize that there is so much about extravagance that we cannot see; we are thus influenced by perception (Mitchell and Mickel 2009). The resultant effects of these unfolding maladies were the complete loss of interest in hard work dignity of and ‘get-rich-quick’ syndrome. It does appear that these privileged individuals are depriving many of most basic need of life and therefore, people are no longer worried about self-respect or recognition to the same degree, since the lower need must first be satisfied (Gire 2011). Therefore, in order to satisfy individual survival instinct as exemplified by Maslow’s hierarchy need theory, people engage in all manner of fraudulent behaviors and practices to obtain supposedly derived psychological state.
In this clime, an average student wants to live “big” whether it is within his or her income or whether it is at the expense of another person fortune. The trappings of success are becoming more demanding and expensive each day; average undergraduate necessities now include designer hand bags, shoes, clothes, expensive gadget such as phones, high quality hair etc. has come into the necessity list and most undergraduates are on the quest to have them despite its dispensability to them at their level of development.
Statement Of The Problem
As young Adults strive to impress their peers with expensive clothing, jewelry and even cars to keep up with the popularity contest they as well jeopardize their future by so doing. They often feel a sense of entitlement and try to keep up a life of extravagance that takes decades to build.
Unfortunately, many young adults may unknowingly quench their ability to save by over spending through their young adulthood which becomes very difficult to fend for themselves later in life. Over spending as a result of extravagant life style has damaging implications both for current debt incurred and future saving habit. As the lifestyle threatens their long term financial wealth, undergraduates could probably result to committing financial crimes which have detrimental effect on the smooth running of institution/college and even the nation at large.
Research question
To what extent will parental socio-economic status influence extravagant lifestyle of undergraduate.
To what extent will peer relation influence extravagant lifestyle of undergraduate.
Purpose Of The Study
Having considered the danger posed by this unfolding phenomenon and the seeming major increase in the spindrift ratio at large, the study aim to evaluate the influence of parental socio-economic status on peer relation on extravagant lifestyle of undergraduates and the extent to which that influence determines undergraduate adopting extravagant lifestyle with the aim of also unraveling the psychological reason for extravagant lifestyle within the context of the topic.
We live in a society where so many people appear to be competing instead of focusing on reasonable goals and objectives, acquiring and maintaining long term wealth is a process that usually comes without a short cut. Finally the research aims at helping young undergraduates psychologically develop the culture and establish a good saving behavior by exposing them to the statistical result of this finding based on average spending mean of an undergraduate.
Operational definition of terms
Extravagant lifestyle: This involves the rate of which people spend or have been spending. It explains the predominant patterns of client spending behavior as operationalised by Omolabi and Akinfala (1999)
Socio-economic status: it includes the occupational category of the undergraduate’s parent and the level of wage earned as operationalized by Onyebuchi (2011).
Peer relation: it involves the extent, severity or magnitude of the problem of inter personal relationship a client is experiencing in the course of social interaction with peers who include neighborhood kids, school mates, and other social groups as operationalized by P.F. Owolabi. Peer relation as used in the study refers to high peer relation. this was determined using the index of pee relation scale developed by Hudson et al(1896) adolescent with scores lower than 26.83 indicate adolescent with low peer relation.
Leave a Comment