amj Australasian Marketing Journal - ANZMAC

Fashion Clothing Involvement
Consumer Self-monitoring, Materialism and Involvement
in Fashion Clothing
1. Introduction
In social and cultural terms there is perhaps no single issue
that dominates the modern psyche as much as fashion. It not
only forms an important part of everyday consumption decisions,
but is also a central component of almost all daily
events, influencing what and where we eat, the clothing we
wear, how we communicate and inherently the very nature of
our thinking. In reality fashion may not be the creation of
powerful persuaders, but a normal outcome of a dynamic
culture and common shifts in the style and tastes of individuals
and groups.
In relation to fashion, consumer researchers have studied the
links between consumers personality traits and their marketplace
behaviours (purchasing and consuming products) for
over 40 years (Brody and Cunningham, 1968; Cohen, 1967;
Martineau, 1957; Myers, 1967 and Tucker and Painter, 1961
and Browne & Kaldenberg, 1997). There have been in the
past a wide array of personality theories and measures developed
to test the theoretical proposition that purchasing and
consumption behaviour are related to aspects of consumers
personality traits. An important personality construct that is
gaining prominence in the psychology and consumer behaviour
literature is self-monitoring. Self-monitoring has been
studied to determine its effects on consumption behaviour by
Bell, Holbrook and Solomon (1991), Becherer and Richard
46 Australasian Marketing Journal 9 (1), 2001
Aron O Cass
Abstract
This study examines the relationships between gender, age, self-monitoring, materialism, fashion clothing consumption motives
and fashion clothing involvement. The study initially builds on the work of Browne and Kaldenberg (1997) and Auty and Elliott
(1998) in relation to self-monitoring and involvement, however, this research uses different measures of self-monitoring and
involvement. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data, resulting in 450 responses being obtained to explore the
relationships between the constructs related to fashion clothing. Specifically, the model delineates the key determinants of fashion
involvement and tests these relationships using Partial Least Squares (PLS). The results support the predicted relationships
suggesting that the model provides a reasonable framework to understand fashion involvement. Materialism and symbolic motives
were found to have a significant effect on respondents level of involvement in fashion clothing. Age and gender had differing
effects on purchase decision and product involvement. However, contrary to the findings of Browne and Kaldenberg (1997) selfmonitoring
was not that strongly related to both materialism and fashion clothing involvement, and self-monitoring levels did not
differ by age and gender.
Keywords: consumer behaviour, involvement, materialism, fashion clothing
(1978), DeBono and Packer (1991), Snyder and DeBono
(1985), Shavitt and Lowrey (1992) and Hogg, Cox and
Keeling (2000). The purchase and consumption behaviour of
individuals has also been the focus of much of the work on
involvement and materialism (Belk, 1985; Richins &
Dawson, 1992, Mittal, 1988, 1989; Laurent & Kapferer, 1985
and Zaichkowsky 1985, 1986; O Cass 2000a).
The nexus of the debate appears to be that fashion clothing
involvement is likely, according to Auty and Elliott (1998), to
be associated with differences in sensitivity to ones social
surroundings. And as such, one ponders whether involvement
in a product like fashion clothing, with its strong image and
sensory components, has similar abilities to be seen as a
significant possession creating a fulfilling life, because of the
happiness, success and central position it may occupy in the
lives of some (materialists). However, the only study to
explore the linkages between these three constructs (involvement,
materialism & self-monitoring) has been that of
Browne and Kaldenberg (1997). Others (Auty & Elliott,
1998) have focused on attitudes and self-monitoring and
image congruency and self-monitoring (Hogg, Cox &
Keeling, 2000).
The exploration of such consumer characteristics as involvement,
self-monitoring and materialsim that impact individuals
purchase and consumption of specific types of products is