외모관리행동과 외모만족도가 삶의 질에 미치는 영향: 사회문화 및 개인목표 행동적 접근

Abstract

Physical appearance has become one of the most significant criteria of evaluating people. Influenced by diverse mass-media, those who set their physical appearance goal according to the socio-cultural norms of the time not only work on their appearance in their daily lives but also show excessive appearance management behaviors to reach the goal, including plastic surgery to change their body, lipo suction, and extreme diets that can cause eating disorders. Beauty management behavior as a total concept, not as a specified one e.g., face, hair, skin, nails, cosmetics, etc, can improve a person's image and give a pleasant impression to others, leading to smooth interpersonal relationships and psychological satisfaction, which in turn are expected to improve quality of life. The objective of the current study is three-fold: 1) to investigate the effects of socio-cultural attitude toward appearance and goal-oriented attitude toward appearance on appearance management behaviors; 2) to empirically verify the effects of appearance management behaviors and appearance satisfaction on future behavior intentions and quality of life; and 3) to examine a moderating effect of public self-consciousness (high/low groups) on the effect of socio-cultural attitude and goal-oriented attitude toward appearance on appearance management behaviors. Men and women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s residing in Gwangju and Daijeon areas participated in the current study. Questionnaires were administered through email, fax, or visit for approximately 4 weeks. A total of 375 questionnaires were used in the final analysis. Frequency analysis and descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the data, using SPSS 10.1. First, to establish reliability and validity, exploratory factor analysis was carried out and reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Second, confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis were conducted using LISREL 8.30. Third, LISREL 8.30, a chi-squared test was carried out for structural equation model. The findings of the study are as follows: First, the internalization of goal-oriented attitude toward appearance negatively affected obligatory goal-oriented attitude but did not significantly affect voluntary goal-oriented attitude. Social cognition of appearance also negatively affected obligatory goal-oriented attitude but did not significantly affect voluntary goal-oriented attitude. Second, internalization significantly affected appearance management behaviors, and so did social cognition. Third, of goal-oriented attitude variables, obligatory goal-oriented attitude did not have a significant effect on appearance management behaviors whereas voluntary goal-oriented attitude did. Fourth, appearance management behaviors showed positive effects on appearance satisfaction and also on future behavior intentions, namely, intentions of continuous appearance management and expansion of in-depth management. Appearance satisfaction was found to have a positive on intention of continuous appearance management, but not on intention of expansion of in-depth management. Fifth, appearance satisfaction revealed a significant effect on quality of life, and also on intentions of continuous appearance management in the future and expansion of in-depth management. The findings indicate that positive cognition of appearance management leads to appropriate appearance management, resulting in appearance satisfaction, through which satisfaction with life also increases. Sixth, moderating effects of public self-consciousness were found in causal relationships between social cognition of appearance and appearance management behaviors, obligatory goal-oriented attitude toward appearance and appearance management behaviors, and voluntary goal-oriented attitude toward appearance and appearance management behaviors. However, a moderating effect of public self-consciousness was not found in a relationship between internalization of appearance and appearance management behaviors. The current study has some limitations in considering various situational factors and yielding in-depth results about internalization. Future studies need to incorporate diverse variables regarding the intention of in-depth management expansion into investigating appearance management behaviors. In addition, more empirical studies need to be conducted with diverse age groups of participants for the findings of the study to be generalized.