Factors influencing life satisfaction among college students

Abstract

Recently, there has been an increase in wellbeing marketing, which focuses on increasing consumer life satisfaction or consumers' sense of subjective wellbeing. Numerous studies have been conducted to identify which aspects contribute to consumer life satisfaction. In order to provide additional insights into consumer life satisfaction, this study aimed to identify the relationships among social psychological variables (consciousness of social face, social interaction anxiety, and career anxiety), shopping confidence, and life satisfaction. Shopping confidence in this study relates to confidence for clothing/accessories. It was hypothesized that social psychological variables influence life satisfaction not only directly but also indirectly through shopping confidence. Data were gathered by surveying university students in Seoul, using convenience sampling. Two hundred eighty six questionnaires were used in the statistical analysis. Factor analysis of consciousness of social face revealed two factors, 'desire to gain face' and 'fear of losing face'. Factor analysis of social interaction anxiety, shopping confidence, and life satisfaction revealed that these variables were uni-dimensional. Test of the hypothesized path showed that all social psychological variables influenced life satisfaction indirectly through shopping confidence, whereas 'fear of losing face' of consciousness of social face and career anxiety influenced life satisfaction directly. The results give marketers some understanding of their consumers' life satisfaction in relation to consciousness of social face, social interaction anxiety, career anxiety, and shopping confidence.