How do I keep from becoming materialistic?
Did I miss a bad effect of being materialistic … except that part featuring those lovely $$$ in your bank account? 
buy less stuff!
That’s a nice slogan - buy less stuff, save free space on your screen
(I got 6 to 8 columns of bought stuff, lots of skills and all friend info fields popped up, I’m so glad that I run a big screen resolution 
)
While buying “less stuff” is an option, it’s a pretty limiting option, as I’m finding that as soon as I have six items, I’m being tagged as “materialistic”, and show up that way for the rest of the game.
I think that the threashold for “materialism” should be considerably higher than six … consider that I have a dog, take the paper (so that I have crossword puzzles to help with IQ), have ice skates and a chessboard (so that I can have more social activities), sudoko (so that I can keep my IQ up) and a method of transportation other than walking, and am now permanently materialistic.
Shouldn’t some items not count toward the total (is having a dog and taking the paper REALLY a symptom of materialism?), and shouldn’t the total really be higher than 6?
As I recall, your materialistic’ness (i really doubt that’s a word) is just balanced against the severity of other descriptions. so if you are REALLY fit, then you’ll be described as fit, regardless as how many items you own etc.
That’s me remembering it, I haven’t checked the code.
I’m seeing two descriptors, and once I have more than 5 items, one of them is always ‘materialistic’, regardless how happy (or miserable), fit, cultured or popular my sim is … so, based on the consistancy of that descriptor, and my ability to predictably produce it simply by having 6 items it would seem that materialism is either hard coded to appear anytime you have more than 5 items, or its weighted differently than the other descriptors … or at least it appears that way to me, since I can’t get rid of it without selling off my stuff (can’t sell the dogs and cats btw … seems like you should be able to adopt them out)
I agree pets and books shouldnt count toward your total… I think it is ridiculous to only have six items…yet include pets and books in the total:LOL