인간복지에 대한 연구가 주관적 만족이나 행복을 경험하는가의 쾌락주의(hedonism)로부터 분별력 있고 자신의능력을 발휘하며 번영해나가는가의 행복주의(eudimonism) 관점으로 옮겨가는 가운데, 본 연구의 목적은 이 두 관점을 수용하는 소비생활복지의 개념을 제안하고 척도를 개발하는 것이다. 심리학, 경제학, 마케팅, 소비자학의 관련연구 고찰을 통해 소비생활복지(Consumption Life Well-Being: CLWB)는 현대 소비자가 자신의 능력과 자율적판단으로 질적 양적으로 높고 만족스러우며 번영해나가는 성숙한 소비생활을 영위하는 것으로 정의하고, 쾌락주의요소의 양과 만족, 행복주의 요소의 질, 자율성, 능력/자신감이라는 총 5개 차원에 대해 측정 항목을 구성한 후, 조사-재조사의 예비조사와 1, 2차 본조사를 통해 신뢰성, 타당성 검증을 거쳐 척도를 개발하였다. 연구 결과, 소비생활척도는 양, 만족/질, 성장력의 3개 차원, 총 10개 항목으로 구성되었고, 이를 적용하여 응답자 자신의 소비생활복지를 측정한 후, 소비생활만족, 소비자율성, 소비자신감과의 상관관계를 통해 기준관련타당성을 검증하고 소득과 생활수준인지와 함께 회귀분석을 시도하였다. 소비생활복지는 소득과 생활수준인지와 무관하였고, 전반적으로 소비생활만족의 영향이 가장 높았으나 성장력이라는 행본론적 복지 차원은 소비자신감의 영향이 가장 높게 나타났다. 본 연구의 결과는 소비자의 역량을 강화하여 잠재력을 높이는 일이야 말로 소비자복지를 꾀하는 소비자학의 사명임을 강조하였고, 연구의 제한점을 중심으로 척도의 세련화를 위한 제안이 제시되었다.
There have been two relatively distinct perspectives and paradigms for empirical inquiry into well-being that revolve around two distinct philosophies. One is hedonism from Aristippus and reflects the view that well-being consists of pleasure or happiness. The other is eudaimonism from Aristotle and reflects the view that well-being consists of more than just happiness and lies in the actualization of human potentials.
This study attempts to view consumption life well-being by combining the two perspectives of hedonism and eudaimonism and to develop a new scale to measure the level of consumption life well-being. Since well-being has been vigorously studied in academia, a wider literature review is needed to be better equipped to develop a reliable, valid, and usable scale. A time consuming literature review has been accomplished in psychology, economics, marketing, and consumer science.
While Diener’s subjective well-being (SWB) has been associated with the hedonistic approach to well-being, Ryff’s psychological well-being (PWB) falls within the eudaimonic tradition and was originally formulated to challenge the prevailing hedonistic view of well-being within psychology. Ryan and Deci’s self-determination theory (SDT) presents a model of eudaimonia and concerns how one lives one’s life rather than the well-being outcome, per se. In conventional economics, individual well-being is concerned primarily with the results of consumptive activity.
The equation of economic consumption with well-being was questioned in many studies by social scientists who cast doubt on the importance of income and wealth to the happiness of most societies. An alternative way of thinking reveals the limitations of the utility framework.
Amartya Sen challenges a basic assumption of the utilitarian tradition by turning to the Aristotelian tradition and assigning value to human capabilities. In marketing, the effect of marketing on consumers’ quality of life has interested many scholars by realizing that marketing influences consumers’ quality of life in large part because it affects satisfaction in the consumerlife domain. In macromarkeing, there has been a consistent effort in enhancing the quality of the measure of consumer well-being in terms of satisfaction and dissatisfaction stemming from one’s aggregate experience of consumer goods and services within the entire consumption process. Finally, there has been least interest in consumer well-being in consumer science.
Consumption life well-being (CLWB) is proposed in this study to reveal the eudaimonic concept of well-being in addition to the currency of the hedonistic well-being. It is conceptualized as to maintain one’s consumption life that are qualitatively and quantitatively good enough and satisfactory with capabilities and autonomic decision-making and at the same time are flourishing.
Dimension and items for the measurement are developed based on the two streams of well-being views. Two dimensions for the hedonistic perspective and three dimensions for the eudaimonic perspective are suggested. The former includes satisfaction and quantity and the latter includes quality, autonomy, capability/competence. Items in each dimension are developed based on the literature. Twenty-three items were modified and reduced into sixteen through the facevalidity test by four professors and two scholars with Ph.D. in consumer science. Fifty consumers participated in the test-retest in eleven days interval and three hundred sample and five hundred sample participated in the two independent on-line data collections.
The test-retest correlation and the item-total correlation for each dimension from the pilot test indicate the sixteen items are good enough to proceed further scale development procedure.
The data from the first survey provides another purification procedure including the itemtotal correlation, exploratory factor analysis, and Cronbach’s alpha. Two dimensions in eudaimonic elements, autonomy and capability/competence, are merged into autonomy/capability and the total items reduced into eleven. Another face-validity test was proceeded with this eleven items and one item was survived with a minor expression modification. Another steps of purification of items were proceeded with five hundred consumers. At this stage, very conservative tests for validity and reliability were accomplished with the result from a confirmatory factor analysis and Fornell and Larcker’s average variance extracted (AVE). These include test for the model fit, reliability tests for each item, construct reliability tests for each dimension, and tests for convergent validity and discriminant validity. Through the conservative validity and reliability tests, ten items within three dimensions are finally constructed for the measurement of CLWB.
The three dimensions are one in hedonistic, one in eudaimonic, and one in the combination of the two perspective.
The final CLWB scale is correlated with criteria variables such as consumption life satisfaction,consumption autonomy, and consumption competence to test the criterion-related validity.
The higher the consumption life satisfaction, the more autonomous in consumption life and the more competence in consumption life, CLWB is higher. Finally, in order to measure eachperson’s CLWB and to explore how different the CLWB by their background variables and the three criteria variables, multiple regressions are proceeded. The multiple coefficients reveal that the five independent variables explain CLWB fair enough from 55% to 72%. The most interesting result is that monthly family income is not significant in explaining CLWB.
The perception on their level of living is partially significant. It is significant in quantity dimension, but not in satisfaction/quality and flourishing capability. The highest exploratory power lies in consumption life satisfaction, except the dimension of flourishing capability, in which consumption competence reveals the highest coefficient.
In conclusion, four items are listed as follows:First, the final CLWB scale is composed of ten items within three dimensions, such that quantity in hedonistic, satisfaction/quality in mixed, and flourishing capability in eudaimonic perspective of well-being.
Second, the operational definition of CLWB is empirically supported except the autonomous decision making. CLWB can be defined as maintaining one’s consumption life that is qualitatively and quantitatively good enough and satisfactory with flourishing capabilities.
Third, the quality dimension deduced from the literature review is not fully supported and instead either deleted or splitted into satisfaction and flourishing capability. This means that those eudaimonic elements of well-being are not clearly perceived and activated within contemporary consumers’ mind as insisted in the literature.
Fourth, CLWB is not related with income and partly with perceived level of living. Overall satisfaction in consumption life is far important in CLWB and competence in their consumption life is especially important in the flourishing capability dimension of CLWB.
This study implies that consumers view their CLWB not from the narrow hedonistic perspective but from the harmonious perspective between hedonistic and eudaimonistic. Enhancing consumers’capabilities and competence are very important in their well-being. Therefore, the pivotal role of consumer science is to upgrade consumers’ potentials and capabilities to reach higher level of well-being that are flourishing day after day.
A theoretical and empirical limitation of this study is not escapable, since this was the first attempt to suggest the concept and the measurement by combining the two paradigms of well-being in consumption life. Ongoing interests on well-being and consumer flourishing will support consumers full functioning, rather than simple fulfilling desires.
