The purposes of this study were to examine the degree of symbolic consumption in clothing amongst housewives, to investigate the factors related to symbolic consumption in clothing and the effects of materialism and the reference group on the symbolic...
The purposes of this study were to examine the degree of symbolic consumption in clothing amongst housewives, to investigate the factors related to symbolic consumption in clothing and the effects of materialism and the reference group on the symbolic consumption in clothing.
The data used in this study included 157 housewives living in Chonju, Chonbuk and Sunchon, Chonnam. Statistics used for data analysis were frequencies, means, standard deviation, factor analysis, t-test, one-way anova and multiple regression analysis.
The findings were as follows :
1) The sub-factors of symbolic consumption in clothing were conspicuous, hedonic, and status-symbolic consumption
2) While symbolic consumption in clothing did not appear to show any signficant difference according to demographic characteristics, hedonic consumption and status-symbolic consumption significantly depend on the educational level of housewife and the educational level of husband, respectively.
3) The propensity for symbolic consumption in clothing was influenced by materialism and reference group.
4) According to the results of the regression analysis examining the relative influences of variables affecting symbolic consumption in clothing, the relative importance of the variables are in order of the influences of the reference group, materialism, wife's education and their explanatory power totalled 56.4%.