Conspicuous consumption: An investigation of consumers' attitudes towards conspicuous consumption

The field of consumer behavior is concerned with the study of how individuals, groups and organizations select, purchase, use and dispose of goods, services, ideas or experiences to meet their needs and wants. Along with the developments in consumption from past to present, there have been changes in the consumption behavior of consumers. Consumption behavior, which is generally defined as buying and using products and services in line with the needs of consumers, has emerged as a necessity to meet not only physical needs but also social and psychological needs. Today, consumers engage in consumption activities not only to meet their basic needs such as food and water, but also to gain reputation and prestige, self-actualization, and belonging to a group. With these developments, consumers engage in ostentatious consumption behavior to show themselves to the groups they belong to, wasteful consumption behavior with non-essential consumption activities, and hedonic consumption behavior, which refers to consumption activities carried out for pleasure as well as physical needs. Conspicuous consumption is when consumers purchase certain products or services, usually for the purpose of emphasizing social status, prestige and luxury. This type of consumption focuses on factors such as the cost, brand value or rarity of products or services and aims to raise the consumer's social status as perceived by others. In this context, the aim of the study is to determine the causes and effects of conspicuous consumption behavior and to investigate whether conspicuous consumption behavior has an impact on human behavior. The research consists of three parts; the first part includes conceptual framework and literature review, the second part includes methodology and findings, and the last part includes conclusions. In this study, survey research was applied as a method. The research was prepared in a two-month period and applied in Elazığ in June 2023. The questionnaire was prepared in two parts. The questionnaire survey was conducted to determine the attitudes of consumers towards vanity consumption. The questionnaire items used in the research were used in 10 items other than the 8 items used in Quliyev (2012) in his doctoral thesis and the entire questionnaire was applied. The research population includes all consumers over the age of 18. In the context of the research, Elazig city was selected as the sampling frame. Universities, public institutions, private workplaces, 1086 people were reached in neighborhoods. Convenience sampling method was used in the survey research. The KMO value is (0.878). The Eigenvalue of the questionnaire with a two-factor structure was determined as (8.82) and (2.636) respectively. The total explained variance of the questionnaire was found to be 63.68%. The reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was determined as 0.916. All dimensions and sub-dimensions were found to be normally distributed and parametric tests were used. According to the results of the study, many factors such as age, income, internet usage, education, employment status, occupation, credit card usage, consumer type, consumption priorities, brand preference, advertisements, fashion and brand affect conspicuous consumption.