Personality Style And Its Relationship To Ostentatious Consumer Behaviour And Family Adjustment Among Saudi Women

Abstract

Dr. Al-Farraj Hanan A*

The current study aimed to identify the relationship between personality style, ostentatious consumption behaviour and family compatibility among Saudi women. The study sample consisted of 526 respondents and the results revealed that the most common personality type among the participants was sensory/ intuitive (mean 37.52), followed by decisive/automatic (mean 23.90) and open/conservative (mean 32.44). The level of ostentatious consumption behaviour was 84.21. Regarding the dimensional levels of the family compatibility scale among Saudi women, the social environment was the highest with an arithmetic average of 25.13, followed by the compatibility of spouses - children with an arithmetic average of 36.82 and the compatibility of children - children with an arithmetic average of 22.02. The arithmetic average of the scale as a whole was 115.21 with a relative weight of 79.46%. These results demonstrated a statistically significant positive relationship (p=0.01) between all dimensions of the personality style scale and the family compatibility scale and the total degree, except for the family compatibility dimension - social environment and the total score of the boasting consumption behaviour. There were differences in personality style according to several demographic variables (age, number of children, economic income, duration of marriage, educational level) but not in the family pattern according to educational level. There were also statistically significant differences in family compatibility according to the number of children, economic income, duration of the marriage, and nature of housing but no differences in the family style according to age and educational level, in relation to proud consumption behaviour (age, number of children, economic income, duration of marriage) or consumption behaviour according to nature of housing and educational level. Finally, the study results showed the possibility of predicting family compatibility through personality style with 25.5% of the variation explaining the dimensions of the personality style scale, and 12.2% of variance explaining the predictive behaviour of ostentatious consumption among Saudi women.