A Study on Adolescents' Body Esteem and Clothing Behaviors According to the Sociocultural Attitude toward Appearance

외모에 대한 사회문화적 태도에 따른 청소년의 신체존중감과 의복행동에 대한 연구

The purpose of this study was to investigate adolescents' body esteem and clothing behaviors according to the sociocultural attitude toward appearance. The subjects were 750 adolescents in Daejeon and Chungnam province. The research method was a survey methodology and the measuring instruments consisted of sociocultural attitude toward appearance, body esteem, clothing behaviors, and subjects' demographics attributions. The data were analyzed by Cronbach's ${\alpha}$, factor analysis, cluster analysis, t test, $x^2$ test, ANOVA and Duncan's multiple range test, using SPSS program. The results were as follows. First, 2 dimensions(internalization and awareness) were emerged on the sociocultural attitude toward appearance, and adolescents were divided into 4 groups (unreceptive group, awareness group, internalized group, and receptive group) by the sociocultural attitude toward appearance. Second, there are some differences in adolescents' body esteem according to the sociocultural attitude toward appearance. Receptive group had the lower level on body esteem than unreceptive group. Third, there are significant differences in adolescents' clothing behaviors according to the sociocultural attitude toward appearance. Receptive group had the highest psychological dependency of clothing, clothing interest, clothing individuality, and clothing conformity among 4 groups.