Tim Kasser, professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, is the author of The High Price of Materialism. He spoke at the CCFC Summit about a study he conducted that found that an intervention program can help children become less materialistic, which resulted in less depression and anxiety and greater self-esteem, even after a year.
I talked with him later about the lack of such intervention programs, in the form of media literacy classes, in the schools. He said a good place for such a curriculum would be in the middle school health classes, where teachers are often desperate for good material.
Marketing, Media and Childhood 