The Malleable Self-Concept - Relationships between Young Adolescents’ Self-Concept and Bandwagon Luxury Consumption

Abstract

Due to far-reaching relay in the world, a window into bandwagon luxury consumption has opened which doesn't leave luxuries synonymous to materialism but acts as a signal for affiliation or differentiation. This research analyzes how young adolescents' interdependent and independent self-concept relates to personality traits which impacts bandwagon luxury consumption. The results from Structural Equation Modeling reveal that status consumption is not of significance to the 13-15-year-old children and bandwagon luxuries are consumed primarily inspired by aspirational and current social in-groups and popular culture. A mix of hypothesized results give interesting insights on how young individual makes choices.

Measuring the bandwagon effect: Development of a generalized bandwagon luxury motivation scale

“…While Kastanakis and Balabanis (2012) should be commended for their efforts to capture bandwagon luxury consumption, their scale has limitations, particularly in terms of generalizability. This variation in measurement may explain the conflicting results about the bandwagon effect in the literature in terms of susceptibility to normative influence (Kastanakis & Balabanis, 2014; Kessous & Valette‐Florence, 2019) and self‐concept (Bahri‐Ammari et al, 2020; Kastanakis & Balabanis, 2012, 2014; Shaikh, 2019). Our clear, concise, reliable, valid, and generalizable four‐item bandwagon luxury motivation scale addresses these issues.…”

“…Bahri‐Ammari et al (2020) state that both the interdependent self (to fit in) and the independent self (to show one's higher rank within the group) can lead to bandwagon consumption. Similarly, Shaikh (2019) finds that among adolescent consumers, both the need for uniqueness and susceptibility to normative influence mediate the relationship between interdependent and independent self‐concept and bandwagon luxury consumption. Oyedele and Goenner (2020, p. 719) observe that “a strong bandwagon effect strengthens the effect of the positive relationship between self‐monitoring and satisfaction.” Finally, while Kastanakis and Balabanis (2014) find a positive link between consumers' susceptibility to normative influence and the bandwagon effect, Kessous and Valette‐Florence (2019) find a negative link, particularly in terms of second‐hand luxury products.…”

“…This could be problematic, as the idea that money is no object does not relate to masstige luxury purchases that are often considered to be motivated by the bandwagon effect (Bahri‐Ammari et al, 2020; Kumar et al, 2020). As a result, researchers have had to adapt Kastanakis and Balabanis' scale ad hoc to serve more general purposes (Bahri‐Ammari et al, 2020; Shaikh, 2019; Shukla & Rosendo‐Rios, 2021), with different researchers having different adaptions for the measure as illustrated in Exhibit 1.…”

“…These inconsistencies in use make it harder to interpret, replicate, and build on the bandwagon effect literature. For example, to capture Kastanakis and Balabanis' (2012, p. 1404) “very fashionable” item, Shaikh (2019, p. 37) uses the wording, “I like to buy products that are very fashionable,” while Shukla and Rosendo‐Rios (2021, p. 7) capture it as “I buy certain luxuries because they were fashionable at that time,” and Bahri‐Ammari et al (2020, p. 7) phrase it as “How likely is it that you would purchase/use very fashionable products that everyone would approve their choice?”…”

Antecedents of Conspicuous Consumption, Status Aspiration, and Its Consequences: An Empirical Study on Migrant Blue-Collar Workers in GCC

“…2) Ownership of rare products which many others do not possess, called uniqueness which help consumers to establish status consumption (Corneo & Jeanne, 1998;Latter et al, 2010;Blazquez et al, 2020;Greenberg et al, 2020;Nabi et al, 2019a;Nabi et al, 2019b;Shaikh, 2019).…”