Minimalism consumption in home design and furniture

: sustainability as the key mediator amidst young adults' consumption choices

Abstract

Minimalism, also known as the “Less is More” movement, has, despite its long history, been more adopted by young adults, in recent years. In this sense, this study’s main objective is to understand how minimalism influences young consumers’ furniture and home design choices. We studied this topic through the existing literature on the subject to have a deeper understanding of consumer minimalism and its impact on younger generations. Through the available literature, we learned that there are three determinants, sustainability, financial and emotional well-being, which can potentially mediate the relationship between consumer minimalism and young adults’ consumption choices. With this information, we constructed three models to test if the determinants found in the literature influence the relationship between the two variables and to see if there exists a direct relationship between them. A survey was conducted, and we collected 205 answers, which were analysed using SPSS and SmartPLS. The most important conclusion we can underline is that only one out of the three determinants, sustainability, is a positive mediator between consumer minimalism and young adults’ sustainable consumption choices, which also explains the existence of an indirect positive relationship between these two variables. This revelation discloses a previously undiscovered linkage, thereby adding a novel insight to the ongoing investigation into this topic. It was, also, discovered that young adults’ financial consumption choices are affected directly by consumer minimalism and their emotional consumption choices are in general (directly and indirectly) influenced by the independent variable. The results regarding the other relationships between the variables presented in the models demonstrate that consumer minimalism promotes sustainability practices and that sustainability and current financial well-being positively impact young adults’ sustainability consumption choices. Additionally, consumer minimalism contributes to expected financial well-being, induces positive emotions in consumers who embrace it, and diminishes the presence of negative emotions. Positive emotional well-being positively impacts young adults’ emotional consumption choices. These outcomes solidify the findings from previous literature but also provide new insights. The results show that the discovery of sustainability as a mediator, as well as, of the new relationships found between consumer minimalism and young adults’ sustainable, financial, and emotional consumption choices can be further investigated in detail by future researchers and that companies might use this study to understand how to embrace minimalism in their strategies to capture and satisfy the new wave of consumers more successfully.

Date of Award	23 Jul 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Susana Silva (Supervisor) & Paulo Alexandre de Oliveira Duarte (Co-Supervisor)