© 2021 Journal of ISOSS 125 Journal of ISOSS 2021 Vol. 7(2), 125-143 CURBING THE MATERIALISM-LONELINESS-HAPPINESS TRAP BY TWO CONSCIOUS INTERVENTIONS: A DOUBLE RANDOMIZED EXPERIMENT Afia Khalid 1 and Faisal Qadeer 2 Lahore Business School, The University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan Email: 1 afia.khalid@lbs.uol.edu.pk 2 faisal.qadeer@lbs.uol.edu.pk ABSTRACT Materialism and its predominant socio-cultural impacts are widely researched as the emerging social issues of the modern era. The two very prominent fallouts of materialism are loneliness and the inability to indulge in happiness over a continuous spectrum of time. The theory of materialism-loneliness-happiness (MLH) trap (Khalid & Qadeer, 2017) had identified loneliness as the mediating variable that gives the trap its characteristic cyclical shape. If the trap is cyclical, that means it is a never-ending process. Once trapped, the consumer will not be able to break free from it. However, this study argues that the consumer can stop themself from entangling in the trap by bringing conscious changes in the purchase process. In other words, a consumer can prepare against the trap. This paper attempts to empirically test the mitigation prospect to the MLH trap with the help of an extensive experiment spanned over 14 weeks of experimental manipulation of purchase training. The experiment followed a double randomization design for making the two successive interventions (materialism intervention and loneliness intervention). We found that materialism can be curbed in the shorter run by conscious efforts and training of the consumer. There was an overall decree of about 44% in materialism, a 56% decrease in perceived loneliness, and about a 27% increase in overall happiness scores from the start of the experiment (t1) till the end (t3). This shows that both materialism and loneliness can be handled by conscious efforts of the consumer, controlling the purchase mechanism. We also discuss the implications and provide future research directions. INTRODUCTION Materialism is an emerging social issue not only for sociopsychologists but for marketers as well. Materialism is a consumer value that leads to the belief that success and achievement in life are dependent upon acquiring a great quantity of worldly valuable possessions. At one end, consumers indulge in unrestrained buying patterns which render them financially distressed, emotionally disconnected, unhappy, and perceptually frustrated. This craze for over-consumption has posed several psychological, health and hygiene issues for the consumers (Bartolini & Sarracino, 2017). At the same time, the marketers have analyzed characteristic switching behavior and uncalled-for discontent regarding brands, as a result of over-consumption. Materialism has been identified to be the root cause behind such behavior. There is widespread evidence that materialism increases the perception of loneliness (Bauer et al, 2012; Kasser, 2003; Kilbourne et al., 2005; Lane, 2000; Larsen et al., 1999;