amj Australasian Marketing Journal - ANZMAC

the product of fashion clothing and its purchase decision.
The motives for fashion clothing consumption were affected
differentially by age and gender. The image motive which
tapped the individuals motives to ensure social approval and
pleasure motive which focused largely on the sensory gratification
(Rossiter & Percy, 1997) and functional motive which
focused on the functionality of fashion clothing (warmth,
comfort, durability). Gender only had a significant effect on
driving desires for social approval via image maintenance and
was much stronger in females. Both age and gender had
significant effect on pleasure, which was focused on sensory
gratification and internally focused. It was females and
younger respondents that were dominant here. The functional
motive focusing on the functional attributes of fashion clothing
were not significantly affected by age or gender. What is
interesting to note is the higher levels or focus on functionality
for fashion (mean score 4.25) compared to both imagepleasure
motives that focused on firstly social approval (mean
score 2.72) and secondly sensory gratification (mean score
2.41). The influence of functionality in fashion clothing
whilst not significant is still important. Such importance is
seen in the mean score and indicates a strong requirement for
functionality even in fashion clothing. So all respondents
sought functionality in their clothing. Self-monitoring and
materialism were both significant predictors of symbolic and
pleasure consumption motives for fashion clothing.
Browne and Kaldenberg (1997) also tested and found a relationship
between self-monitoring characteristics of
consumers and their materialistic tendencies. The findings
here also indicate that self-monitoring does have an effect on
materialism, but not as large as identified by Browne and
Kaldenberg (1997). Therefore, the nature of the high selfmonitor
to use products as props to convey an image is also
confirmed here. That is high self-monitors are also apt to see
products as central in their lives and to be acquisitive, have
positive attitudes related to acquisition and to place a high
priority on material possessions (such as fashion clothing).
This characteristic in the self-monitor-materialist (high
possession of both characteristics), implies a tendency to see
products as not only props, but also to derive happiness, see
them as a sign of success and place products in central and
prominent position to convey a certain required image, allowing
a chameleon like nature is supported.
The important aspects of fashion clothing for the majority of
respondents appears to be utility (function), but for materialists
it is the ability to convey status, success and prestige and
give pleasure. Fashion clothing consumption appears to be
particularly susceptible to differences in consumption stereotyping,
and therefore to differences in ability to encode and
decode a range of messages for the fashion involved. This was
also emphasised by Auty and Elliott (1998), and suggests that
consumers with stronger materialistic (and self-monitoring)
tendencies use fashion clothing for impression management,
Fashion Clothing Involvement
place it in a central position in life, use it to convey success
and derive happiness from its consumption. The results indicate
that greater levels of materialism seem to be associated
with an understanding by individuals that possessions serve a
communication or signal to others informing them of who the
individual is and what their status or position is, much as a
high self-monitor does.
On this point Browne and Kaldenberg (1997) argued that,
people who are more materialistic, are also likely to be high
self-monitors, making a strong connection between materialism
and self-monitoring characteristics in consumers. They
also indicated that both materialism and self-monitoring affect
product involvement. However, the results here indicate that
all variables that were predicted to have an effect on product
involvement and purchase decision involvement did, except
for self-monitoring. Self-monitoring was not a predictor of
fashion involvement in comparison to all other independent
variables. The results clearly indicate that the social motive of
social approval derived through the product is the strongest
driver of involvement in fashion clothing, followed by sensory
gratification, gender and age and materialism were fairly
similar in their effects, except for the age effect on purchase
decision involvement which was not significant.
The findings of this study in part support the work of Browne
and Kaldenberg (1997) and Auty and Elliott (1998), however
they also indicate differences and contradictions. For example,
Auty and Elliott s (1998) claim that self-monitoring is a surrogate
for involvement seems misleading at best and wrong at
worst, given the nature of the findings of the present study.
This is so because it was shown here that the effect was not
significant in relation to the other independent variables tested.
It also indicates that further research is warranted on this topic.
9. Limitations
There are some limitations given the nature of the sample
(students) and the use of a single product. However, as identified
earlier the sample is acceptable for theory testing (e.g.,
see, Calder, Philips and Tybout, 1981 and Ferber, 1977). The
study may also be limited by the use of a single product (fashion
clothing), however other studies have also used single
products (Arora, 1982; Fairhurst, Good and Gentry, 1989;
Mittal and Lee, 1988; Slama and Tashchian, 1987; Tigert,
Ring and King, 1980; O Cass, 2000). Further, given that
Browne and Kaldenberg (1997) also used a single product,
namely fashion clothing and one of the objectives of this
study was to re-examine the same constructs using the same
product the use of fashion clothing is not considered to be a
major problem. This paper presents a reexamination of the
Browne and Kaldenberg (1997) study using the same product
class (fashion clothing), but with what are argued to be more
psychometrically sound measures. Further research is now
needed to extend this work into other product categories and
perhaps bring the focus down to a brand level as Auty and
Elliott (1998) did.
Australasian Marketing Journal 9 (1), 2001 57