The Effects of Egocentrism, Self-Consciousness, Body Cathexis on Adolescence Clothing Behavior

청소년의 의복행동에 대한 자아중심성, 자의식, 신체만족도의 영향 연구

The purposes of this study were 1) to identify the effects of age and sex on adolescent's psychological characteristics-egocentrism, self-consciousness, body cathexis and clothing behaviors and 2) to identify the effects of psychological characteristics on clothing behaviors in each of the 6 groups classified by sex and age. Egocentrism was measured by Kim's Imaginary Audience Scale, and body cathexis, by the modified record and Jourard"s Body Cathexis Scale. Buss's Self-Consciousness Scale was slightly modified to assess public and private self-consciousness, and five aspects of clothing behavior were assessed with the questionnaires from the previous studies. The questionnaire were administered to 713 middle and high school boys and girls, and college students living in Seoul. Data were analyzed by frequency, factor Analysis, two-way ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis. The results of this study were as follows: 1) Four factors of egocentrism were identified : Potency, Appearance/populatity, Sympathy and Justice. Four factors of clothing behavior were Clothing exhibition/dressing for others, Clothing interest, Psychological dependence, and Clothing conformity. 2) Sex and age were found to have effects on psychological variables and clothing behaviors of adolescence. Females showed higher egocentrism, self- consciousness, clothing behaviors, but lower body cathexis than males. The mean scores of egocentrism, self-consciousness, clothing behaviors tended to increase with age. However, high school boys showed unique tendency, as they showed higher scores in those variables than the other two age groups. 3) Egocentrism (Appearance/populality factor) and public self- consciousness were the most influencial variables on adolescent's clothing behavior among psychological characteristics. Private self-consciousness was found to be an important variable in explaining Psychological dependence.ence.