Anointing without Money: Exploring the Relationships between Materialism, Happiness and Daily Spiritual Experience in a Nigerian Sample

Materialism, happiness and spiritualism seem inseparable and represent areas that have continued to dominate human life and yet have attracted limited research interests, especially in Nigeria. The present study employed the multi-stage sampling technique to investigate the relationship between materialism, happiness and daily spiritual experience among 142 participants drawn from across 3 religious groups in Makurdi, Benue state Nigeria. Consistent with our first hypothesis, and as opposed to most Western-based studies, we found that materialism is positively related with happiness. Also, the second hypothesis that proposed a significant negative relationship between materialism and daily spiritual experience was refuted. The third hypothesis which proposed a positive relationship between happiness and daily spiritual experience was confirmed. The study suggests that there is more to materialism and happiness than previous authors could see, and that is the context within which the study is carried out. The results imply that caution should be taken when interpreting some results especially those that have socio-cultural implications.