https://phys.org/news/2018-07-political-ideology-luxury.html

Initiated at INSEAD, Dubois and his colleagues' research is among the very first to establish a causal link between luxury purchasing patterns and political proclivity. It builds on a fundamental understanding that people buy luxury goods to signal their status. The authors show that people seek status signaling for one of two critical reasons: to maintain their social position vis à vis others, or to advance their social standing.

In their paper, titled "How Consumers' Political Ideology and Status-Maintenance Goals Interact to Shape Their Desire for Luxury Goods," just published in the Journal of Marketing, Dubois, along with colleagues Kim and Park, both former INSEAD Ph.D.s, hypothesized and found that when the motive to maintain one's current status is salient, conservatives desire luxury goods more than liberals. "This is because conservatives—but not liberals—tend to view these goods as strengthening the stability of their position," said Kim. "This also indicates that conservatives' greater desire for luxury goods does not stem from 'keeping up with the Joneses,' but rather from a strong urge to maintain their social standing," added Dubois. To put this hypothesis to the test, Dubois and his co-authors ran a number of in-depth studies based on samples and analyses using actual sales data, as well as online experiments to test how and when such an effect of status maintenance on the desire for luxury products and services occurs.