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INTRODUCTION
The consumer is the central focus of fashion marketing (Burns, Mullet & Bryant, 2011). An understanding and application of consumers’ appearance management decisions and actions to fashion product development and marketing, is the ultimate competitive tool that leads to the success of every fashion business. Kaiser (1997) stated that appearance management encompasses all thought processes and activities leading to the purchase and use of clothing items as well as processes of body modification such as makeup and hairstyling techniques. Lee & Johnson (2009) also mentioned that appearance management behaviours range from the routine such as apparel selection to the extreme such as surgical procedures. Appearance management therefore is a highly observable behaviour (Johnson, Francis & Burns, 2007) as all humans engage in some form of appearance management everyday (Kaiser, 1997).
However, the level of involvement and concerns related to appearance management differ among individuals (Kaiser, 1997) and cultures (Johnson et al., 2007). These individual differences are due to the tendency of humans to be distinctive individuals as well as conforming members of their society (Solomon & Rabolt, 2004). Individuality and conformity are predispositions that form the basis of all fashion behaviours (Eicher & Sumberg, 1995).
Management of one’s appearance is an important aspect of daily living of consumers as it serves several purposes. It is a means of adorning the body (Johnson, Yoo, Kim & Lennon, 2008). It acts as a communication tool to reflect personality, mood and emotion (Moody, Kinderman & Sinha, 2010), reflect self-concept (Entwistle, 2000), as well as express identity (Feinberg, 1992). Furthermore, first impression is formed based on the appearance of an individual (Johnson, Schofield & Yurchisin, 2002), which in turn affects an observer’s behaviour towards the individual (Kim & Lennon, 2005).
The significance of appearance management cannot be overemphasized. It is not surprising that as far back as 1601, Polonius stated in William Shakespeare’s play entitled “Hamlet”, “for the apparel oft proclaims the man” and in 1927, Merle Johnson cited the undocumented old adage by Mark Twain, “clothes maketh the man”. Additionally, Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384-322 BC) stated, “personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference”. These statements support the fact that one’s appearance with regard to what one wears is a silent language, carrying a symbolic meaning that counts in judging one’s character and background, among others.
The most important concept for success in the fashion industry is that the company needs to know its target market, and provide the right merchandise desired by its customers at the right place and time (Burns et al., 2011). As a result, fashion marketers conduct research to explore the social and psychological factors that influence consumer lifestyle (Keiser & Garner, 2012). The social factors that influence appearance management have been found to include cultural expectations (Rudd & Lennon, 2000), identity (Newholm & Hopkinson, 2009), and agents of socialization such as the family (Ogle & Damhorst, 2003), friends (Lee & Johnson, 2009), school (Gillen & Lefkowitz, 2009), and the mass media (Adomaitis & Johnson, 2008). The psychological factors include body image (Rudd & Lennon, 2000), self-concept (Kaiser, 1997), mood, emotion (Moody et al., 2010) and personality (Goldsmith, 2002).
The social and psychological influence of appearance management have been widely researched, with the exception of personality which have been less-explored. According to Johnson et al. (2007), the study of personality in appearance management has received inadequate attention in the scholarly literature. A current review of literature also shows that it is still a less-researched topic. The majority of the reviewed studies were conducted in the Western and Eastern cultures which may be inapplicable to other cultures, especially those of different race. The researcher has not come across studies conducted in the Ghanaian context.
Additionally, appearance management practices vary and thus, there are several appearance management variables (Rumsey & Harcourt, 2005). As a result, previous studies have examined personality in relation to diverse appearance management variables. These variables include but not limited to appearance orientation (Davis, Dionne & Shuster, 2001), appearance emphasis (Johnson et al., 2007), and fashion consumption (Roy, Sethuraman & Saran, 2016). Considering the limited attention of the topic in the scholarly literature, inadequate cross- cultural studies and existence of numerous variables, a lot still needs to be explored before conclusive results can be drawn on the link between personality and appearance management.
Furthermore, to boost the fashion industry’s relentless effort of achieving consumer satisfaction and accomplishing business goals, it is inadequate to only explore the appearance management practices of consumers. It is also necessary to investigate how personality, an inherent factor of humans influences the way people manage their appearance. This could help fashion businesses to thoroughly understand consumers. Subsequently, this may enable the fashion industry identify the needs of their target market and thus, develop products and services that suit the needs and expectations of the targeted consumers. In addition, it would guide market segmentation (Mulyanegara & Tsarenko, 2009) and marketing strategies of companies (Roy et al., 2016), and consequently generate profit which in turn may lead to the success of the fashion industry.
Moreover, consumers count on producers for appearance products that would reflect their personality, in order for society to accord them the attention and admiration they deserve. Therefore, there is the need for fashion marketers and researchers to investigate the role of personality in consumers’ appearance management practices. Hence, the study addressed this need by drawing upon the Five Factor Model of Personality (Eysenck, 1963; Costa & McCrae, 1976) and Kaiser’s (1997) concept of appearance management.
According to Kaiser (1997), shopping and dress are acts and forms of appearance management. Consumers shop and dress in several distinctive ways known as shopping styles (Bakewell & Mitchell, 2003) and dress styles (Johnson & Francis, 2006) respectively. Personality describes the organized, interrelated aspects of affects, cognition and behaviours that give pattern and direction to a person’s life (Pervin, 1996). Since shopping and dress are highly visible behaviours (Johnson et al., 2007) that involve thought processes, feelings and actions, it is posited that the driving force of shopping and dress styles among consumers may be due to the relatively enduring tendencies known as personality traits.
There is empirical evidence that different cultures produced contradictory results regarding the relationship between personality and concepts of shopping and dress. Studies by Šulková (2013) and Roy et al. (2016) reported significant associations between personality traits and certain shopping styles. On the contrary, Mulyanegara & Tsarenko (2009) found that personality traits had no significant relationship with shopping behaviour. Johnson & Francis (2006) reported a strong relationship between personality traits and dress styles. Whereas, Moody et al. (2010) found low to moderate relationships between personality traits and dress styles. Despite these contradictory findings, the situation in Ghana may be different as the shopping and dress styles of Ghanaians relatively differ from that of foreign cultures.
In Ghana, although there are quite a large number of fashion businesses, the study of psychographics, specifically consumer personality in appearance management has not received much attention. It seemed prudent to research into topics related to personality and more importantly appearance management on contextual basis, as ways of doing things significantly vary from culture to culture. It was therefore imperative to conduct this study in the Ghana setting as it would enable the Ghanaian fashion industry to make informed decisions in every stage of production and marketing of fashion merchandise.
Statement of the Problem
Appearance management involves all the thought processes and activities related to an individual’s look. Managing appearance is important because it serves as a tool for grooming the self, expressing identity and creating first impressions, which may influence how observers react towards an individual. Consumers of fashion are therefore concerned about how they manage their appearance and expect fashion product developers to provide the right merchandise that would help in their appearance management. Inadequate knowledge of the influence of personality, the driving force of one’s thoughts, feelings and actions, on appearance management decisions and acts may be a setback to the success of the fashion industry in Ghana. Moreover, the study of consumer personality in appearance management in the Ghanaian context has not received much attention. In view of this, it was important to investigate the role of personality in appearance management. This study therefore, explored how female young adults in Ghana shop and dress based on their personality traits.
The aim of the study was to examine the relationship among shopping styles, dress styles and personality traits of female young adults.
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