The relationship of self‐monitoring to buying behavior and to the consumer’s value system is controversial and not well understood. The study examined the relationship between self‐monitoring, materialism, and involvement with clothing and brands among a sample of 387 young adults. Constructs were measured with Snyder’s Self‐Monitoring Scale, the Material Values Scale, the Consumer Involvement Profile, and a scale measuring market alienation. Self‐monitoring was positively related to materialism, to clothing involvement, and to interest in marketplace events and brands. Discusses implications for the meaning of self‐monitoring and the use of personality in explaining consumption behavior. Suggests implications for marketing strategy.

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This research examines gender differences in personal characteristics, work experiences, work attitudes, and professional commitment for a group of young (age < 45) dentists. While males and females had similar work attitudes, they differed in work experience -males worked more hours, saw more patients, and earned higher incomes. Males had higher scores on affective and behavioral professional commitment measures than did females, but the gender difference was significant only for behavioral commitment. For both females and males, affective professional commitment was related positively to job satisfaction, office cohesion, having young children, and negatively related to stress. The relationship between owning the practice and affective professional commitment was greater for men than women, whereas the relationship between the proportion of office staff who are close friends and affective professional commitment was greater for women than men. For males, behavioral commitment was related positively to being married, being a specialist, working more hours, having higher income and belonging to the professional association. For females, behavioral commitment was related positively to job involvement, office cohesion, and the number of days worked each week. Results suggest that affiliation is related more closely to professional commitment among females, while practice control and productivity are related more closely to professional commitment among males.

Previous studies have examined the relationship between respondent age and response to telephone surveys and face-to-face interviews (Herzog and Dielman 1985;Rodgers 1988a, 1988b;Herzog, Rodgers, and Kulka 1983). Evidence suggests that elderly, as compared to other age groups, have a lower rate of response to personal interviews (Hawkins 1975;Lowe and McCormick 1955; Mercer and Butler 1967/68) and to telephone surveys (Herzog, Rodgers, and Kulka 1983;Massey, Barker and Hsiung 1981; Thornberry 1982;Weaver, Holmes, and Glenn 1975). None of the studies cited above examined age and response rates to mail surveys, probably owing to the obvious difficulty in obtaining age data on nonrespondents to mail surveys.The ability to process information contained in a questionnaire obviously varies, to some extent, with age. Phillips and Sternthal's (1977) review of the effects of age differences on individual patterns of information exposure, learning, and influenceability concluded that the elderly (1) experience a contraction of life space that limits exposure to information; (2) show reduced ability to learn when information presentation is rapid and externally paced; and (3) are no more influenceable than other adults. John and Cole (1986) reported that memory-strategy usage and processing speed were the primary sources of information-processing deficits in elderly adults. Such deficits are most evident when (1) large amounts of information are presented;(2) when that information is covered in a less-than-optimal format that lacks