Investigating the Role of Face Consciousness in the Relationship between the Material Value and Brand Consciousness in Buying Decision Process

Investigating the Role of Face Consciousness in the Relationship between the Material Value and Brand Consciousness in Buying Decision Process *1 Majid Safdari, 1 Dr.Hamid Tajik, 2 Vahide Hajihassani Abstract Although the relationship between materialism and consumption of well-known brands has been studied well in the literature on consumer behavior (Darian, 1998: Kamineni, 2005; Prendergast & Wong, 2003), however there are some puzzling phenomena in this field. It's hard to explain why people consume products with a brand without actual knowledge. In this case, people may find that products not because of taking possession of it but because of social needs such as the desire to be respected and having social relationships with others that is defined as the face (Ting - Toomey & Kurogi, 1998), The aim of this study was to investigate the role of self-awareness in relation between the material value and self-consciousness of the brand. 400 questionnaires were distributed over a period of 6 days at the Faculties of Tehran University management and Tehran Azad, Science and Research Universities. Role of face was tested as mediator and moderator. The results showed that the value of the material, self awareness of face and self-awareness of the brand have significant relationships with each others. The regression hierarchical results revealed that the face and value of the material have no significant interaction with each other. And the role of face moderator has not been supported by the data, and face had the partial mediating role in the relationship between the value of the material and brand self-awareness, the findings of this study opens new horizons for better understanding the impact of material value and face consciousness on brand consciousness. Keywords: Material Value, Brand Consciousness, Face Consciousness, Mediator Variable, Moderator Variable. 1 Department of Management, Faculty of Humanities, Abhar branch, Islamic Azad University, Abhar, Iran 2 Young Researchers and Elite Club, Abhar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Abhar, Iran http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2192

Introduction There are Significant differences between individuals in how they interact with objects. Some people show great pride of their assets out of service and while others compliment or define of their material resources to them, they were satisfied, Some people seem that type of car that they drive is important to them, Some people beautiful house in which they live or their personal wealth, some people work hard, So they will be able to buy more objects for themselves and their families, Others are equally satisfied after resolving their essential needs of consumption. These people are different in their material values - their personal beliefs about the importance of material goods and its role in their lives - (Earl & Kemp, 1999, 374). In the modern world, marketers have made easier buying process for consumers, in developing countries such as Iran, Consumers find themselves slowly among a host of names and trademarks. Materialism that happened in the wake of modernization in Iran metropolises slowly become themselves more visible, it brings with itself consumerism and has become known a place to advertise products with name and logo. As we see t consumer awareness of Popular Brands and their desire to have possession of these brands will increase every day, However using Popular Brands is not necessarily related to with brand awareness and sometimes consumers consume products without actual knowledge of their brand. Although the relationship between materialism and brand consciousness has been mentioned in the literature but their mechanisms of communication has not been defined well.it's hard to explain why people buy these branded products without actual knowledge of their brand, theoretical supporting has been obtained for relationship between materialism and consumption of the brand on comments of Mason research (1981), Darayan (1998), Parandegarest and Wang (2003) Kaminny (2005),. However, there is some conflict puzzling observations in this case, for example, people who have very little knowledge about the brand name, they purchase a lot of famous brands products. The researcher infers in this case that people buy products because of their social needs such as the desire to have social value and respect in relation to others that is defined as the face not because of their owned or for their personal needs and its function. It seems that the mechanism of the relationship between materialism, face and brand awareness has the complex state. In the present study we trying to answer this question that how the relationship between material value and brand self-consciousness is influenced by the self-consciousness of the face. Review of Literature About the impact of material value on brand self-awareness or examining the relationship between self-awareness of face with the previous two Quantitative researches has been done that some of them will mention subsequently: 1-Bao and et al conducted a study in 2003 about the impact of the cultural aspects in decisionmaking styles of Chinese and American consumers the results showed that self-awareness of face has positive impact on consumers' brand awareness. 2 - Wang and Liao during a study they published in the journal Psychology and Marketing in China in 2009, they found that face as mediator variable acts in the relationship between material value and brand self-awareness. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2193

3 - Theoretical explanation of the relationship between materialism and consumption brand of the researchers efforts obtained in this field such as: Mason (1981), Darian (1998), Prendergast and Wong (2003) and Kamineni (2005). 4 - Leo and others during a study in contrast between the characters of consumers and brand image choose they pointed out, in other words the identity of consumers always does not match with an intellectual brand image for which the product advertised. 5- Wang and.ahuvia (1998) Found that face affects people's consumption behaviors and people with self-awareness of top face tend to track and purchase products with famous brand name and logo and they like to demonstrate the value of that product to others in public. Conceptual model: Partial mediation model Self-awareness of the face Brand self-awareness Complete mediation model Self-awareness of the face Moderator model Brand self-awareness Self-awareness of the face Brand self-awareness Selfawareness of the face Figure 1- The conceptual model http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2194

Research Hypotheses 1- has a direct impact on brand self-awareness. 2. Self- awareness of face has a direct impact on brand self-awareness. 3- has significant relationship with self-awareness of the face. 4- Mediation model: self-awareness of the face has a mediator role in the relationship between material value and self- awareness of the brand and it strengthens this relationship. 5- Moderator model: self-awareness of the face moderates relationship between material value and brand self-awareness. In other words, self-awareness of top face becomes stronger relationship between the value of the material and self-awareness of the brand. Research Methodology In the present study we used Scrolling. We can perform Scrolling by several ways; by the person, telephone, mail or through the line (Kolb, 2008, 25-32). This research is studied in terms of place among students from School of Management from Tehran Universities and the population of the study is students from Tehran Universities School of Management. For sampling, first we identified colleges that they had college of Management and then by random sampling method, we selected a university from public universities and one university from Azad universities.for the sample volume of each college selected used Morgan & kerjesi table and finally for sampling of selected colleges, it is used systematic sampling method. The method of collecting data in this research is a combination of library and field studies which from library studies used to explain the basics of theoretical about subject and from field study used a questionnaire as an instrument to collect data from participants. To analyze the data, we used a cross-correlation (Pearson product moment correlations) and to test moderator model, we used hierarchical regression and to test the mediation model, we used proposed method by Baron and Kenny. Findings 1. Descriptive statistics. In this section we describe the demographic variables and variables of this study. Demographic characteristics used in this research include: gender, age; marital status and educational level of participants Age In This study participants ranged in age from 18 to 45 years old. With an average 23/27 and standard deviation 4/389 the highest frequency (mode) sample age of the students was 21 years old. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2195

Table 1- Age distribution of participants numbers The least The most mean 358 18 45 23/27 Standard deviation 4/389 Gender, Marital Status of Participants Through 358 students, 51/7 % (185 people) were male and 48/3 % (173 people) women. Of these students, 51 (14.2 %) were married, 303 people (84/6%) Single and 4 (1.1%) were the others. Moreover there was no significant effect on the gender and marital status on the dependent variable. Table 2- gender and marital status of participants cumulative percentage frequency Gender and marital status 51/7 51/7 185 Man 100 48/3 173 woman 84/6 84/6 303 Single 98/9 14/2 51 married 100 1/1 4 others Educational Level According to Table 3, BA degree with 76/5% of sampling is the highest and doctorate degree by 1/4 % assigning the lowest rate in orders. Table 3-educational level of Students cumulative percentage percentage frequency educational level 4/5 4/5 16 Associate 81 76/5 274 BA 98/6 17/6 63 MA 100 1/4 5 PhD 100 100 386 Total Material Value, Brand Consciousness and Face Consciousness Table 4 shows the mean and standard deviation of variables. Average of material value3/43 is calculated with a standard deviation 6 / 026 that is higher than the mean value (privilege 1, the lowest and 5, the highest value for the variable material values) and it shows that students are with relatively high material value. Brand self-awareness and face variables have respectively with average 4/53 (above average) and 3/98 (slightly less than the average) requirements. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2196

Privilege 1 was considered as the lowest and 7 the highest for variables of brand and face selfawareness. Table 4-Mean and standard deviation of variables Standard Deviation Mean No Variables 6/620 3/43 358 6/901 4/53 358 Brand self awareness 1/308 3/98 358 Face self-awareness 358 Total Since it prevented the entry of incomplete data and questionnaires into statistical software, so all the 358 data was safe and complete and we didn t see any data that was lost. 2-Inferential statistics: Hypothesis test In this section, we make inferences the proposed hypothesis testing using the data collected from the sample about the population. The first hypothesis test First hypothesis: the material value has a direct impact on brand self-awareness. It significantly considered value (R2 = 0.238) of the variance in brand self-awareness by material value (F = 111.446, p <0.001). The results of the regression equation as summarized in Table 4-5 is available, it showed that the effect of brand self-awareness (. /488) on material value is significantly acceptable (t = 10.557, p <0.001). So we can say by 99.9% confidence level that value of the material has significant direct impact on the self-awareness of the brand. Table 5- Summary results of the linear regression between material value and selfawareness of brand R 2 S.E of Std. F β T Estimate error 0.238 111.446*** 0.788 0.488 10.557*** 0.067 Dependent Variable: Brand Consciousness *P<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p < 0.001. The Second Hypothesis Test The second hypothesis: self-awareness of face has a direct impact on self-awareness of brand. The results of Linear regression and F rate in Table 6 shows that the regression equation between self-awareness of the face and the brand self-awareness is significantly processor of data http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2197

collected.direct impact of face self-awareness and also brand on the self-consciousness of face is significantly and by 99.9% acceptable reliable and value of this effect is./498.thus the available data provides sufficient evidence to confirm this assumption (t = 10.840, sig = 0.000). Table 6- Summary results of the linear regression between face self-awareness and brand self-awareness R 2 S.E of Std. F β T Estimate error 0.248 117.498*** 0.783 0.498 10.840*** 0.032 Dependent Variable: Brand Consciousness *P<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p < 0.001. The Third Hypothesis Test The third hypothesis: the material value has a significant relationship with the face consciousness This hypothesis was confirmed also by data from the sample. Test results of correlation Test showed that the material value has a significant relationship with the self-awareness of the face (sig = 0.000, 2-tailed) and the value is 0/600.Also the material value explains 36% of the face self-awareness variance. The results of regression analysis in Table 7 indicate that the value of material has a significant and direct effect on face consciousness. So the available data provides sufficient evidence to confirm this assumption. Table 7 -Summary results of the linear regression between material value and selfawareness of face S.E of R 2 F β T Estimate Material valiue 0.360 200.459*** Dependent Variable: Brand Consciousness *P<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p < 0.001. 1.048 The Fourth Hypothesis Test, Model Test Moderating 0.600 14.158*** Std. error 0.089 The fourth hypothesis: face consciousness moderates relationship between material value and brand self-awareness. In other words, self-awareness of top face has a stronger relationship between the value of the material and brand consciousness. Moderator variable, is quantitative variable (such as a reward) or qualitative (e.g., gender, race or social class) which affects to the direction and / or strength of the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Moderator variables are independent variables but moderator variables have mediated role. (Baron & Kenny, 1986). To test the moderator model, first the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable moderator reviews. (1th direction in Figure 1-4). Then the effect of moderator variable http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2198

on dependent variable (second direction) and finally the impact of the interaction reviews between the independent variable with the moderator on dependent (third direction).to accept the moderator model hypothesis the third direction should be meaningful. Also the first and second directions must have significant effect on the dependent variable. To understand better how to inter act the moderator variables with independent of Cohen and Cohen (1983) and to test the moderator model, you can see the article Baron and Kenny (1986) in this regard that is significant. The first direction Face consciousness of face consciousness The second direction The second direction Brand consciousness Figure 2- Moderator Model To test the effect of moderator it was used face self-awareness and testing the effect of linear and interactive material value with face consciousness by the hierarchical regression. Thus the model variables were: demographic variables, material value, face consciousness, and finally the interaction between material value and face consciousness. Table 8 shows results for the hierarchical regression for the main and interactive effects of material value.the main effects of material value (. /268) and face consciousness (. /333) at each stage they had a significant effect on the regression equation (t = 3.378, sig = 0.000; t = 5.442, sig = 0.000) and at each step they participate meaningfully to increase in variance that respectively were. /239 and /070. But in contrast the interaction effect (. /023) was not significant between material value and consciousness of face on brand consciousness (t = 0.275, sig = 0.784) and it didn t have a significant increase in variance of face consciousness (F change = 0.076, sig = 0.784).However, the overall model was significant (F = 26.659, sig = 0.000). Thus, according to the presentation above, it didn t achieve sufficient evidence for moderating role of face consciousness and this assumption is not accepted. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2199

Table 8 -Summary results of hierarchical regression model to test the moderator model Adjusted β t R 2 ΔR 2 F face Interactive effect 0.268 0.333 0.023 3.378*** 5.442*** 0.275 Dependent Variable: Brand Consciousness *P<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p < 0.001. 0.243 0.313 0.313 R 2 0.234 0.303 0.301 0.239*** 0.070*** 0.000 28.287*** 32.060*** 26.659*** Fifth Hypothesis Testing, Mediator Model Testing Fifth hypothesis: face consciousness has a mediator role in the relationship between material value and brand consciousness and it strengthens this relationship. Mediator variables play a dual role in the relationship between themselves and independent variables, the role of the dependent variable and in their relation with the dependent variable they play a role of independent variables. Mediator variable often considered as the latent variables. At first psychologists found the importance of these variables in the psychological functioning structures. While the moderator variables has the independent and immediate role in its impact on the dependent variable, and the mediator variable has no independent effect of itself and it only transmits independent variable effect and it intervenes in relation between dependent and independent variables. A) Partial mediation model First direction Face consciousness The second direction Third direction Brand consciousness Complete mediation model Face consciousness Brand consciousness Figure 3- Mediator Model http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2200

To accept the role of mediator Face consciousness the following condition suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986): 1 - Variance in the independent variable significantly related to variance in mediator variable. 2 -Variance in mediator variable is significantly related to the variance in the dependent variable. 3 - When the first and the second direction controlled, the previous significant relationship wasn t significant between the dependent and independent variables reduced significantly (third direction). The strongest effect of the mediator occurs when by controlling the first and second direction, the relationship between dependent and independent variables reduces to zero (perfect mediator). Three Separate regressions equations were used to test mediation model. For this it doesn t require to implement hierarchical regression or step by step regression or calculation of the correlation of separation and half separation. First the regression Face consciousness on material, the material value, and second regression of Brand consciousness on material value and finally regression of Brand consciousness was performed on Face consciousness and material value. Results of three regression equation are summarized in Table 9. Table 9-summaryof regression results to test mediation model β t R 2 Adjusted R 2 Regression of face Consciousness on value of material 0.600 14.158*** 0.360 0.358 Regression of brand Consciousness on value of material 0.488 10.557*** 0.238 0.236 Regression of brand Consciousness 0.321 5.791*** on face and value of material 0.296 3.345*** 0.304 0.300 Indirect effect with the effect of mediator variable 0.192 *P<0.05; ** p<0.01; *** p < 0.001. F 200.459** * 111.445** * 77.586*** The results showed that the variance in the material value is significantly related to the variance in face consciousness (F = 200.459, p <0.001). In the second step also the variance in face consciousness is significantly related to the variance in brand consciousness (F = 77.586, p <0.001) finally, after the first and second direction controlled. The impact of material value on brand consciousness significantly decreased than the time we didn t interfere effect of figure. (β = 0.488, β = 0.296). So self- awareness of face is as part of the relationship between material value and brand consciousness (F = 200.459, P <0.001; F = 77.586, P <0.001) and according to the analysis carried out above and acceptance the conditions offered, the fifth hypothesis is accepted. So we can say that the available data offers sufficient evidence to support this assumption and consciousness of the face plays as a mediator in the relationship between material value and brand Consciousness. http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2201

Figure 4 shows the final model obtained from testing hypotheses, as well as direction diagram. Standardized coefficients beta shows the direction and measurement impact of material value and brand self-consciousness on face consciousness Considering the coefficient of direction the value effect of material value on face consciousness 600/0, the effect measurement of face consciousness on brand self-awareness 0/321, the measurement effect of material value on brand consciousness 6 /, and its indirect effect through mediator variable6/ 292obtained respectively. 0.600 Face consciousness 0.296 0.321 Brand consciousness Figure 4- Direction Model and regression coefficient Standard that shows the effect of mediated face consciousness in the model. Conclusion and Recommendations The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Face consciousnesses in the relationship between the material values and Brand consciousness.400 questionnaires distributed over a period of 6 days at the Faculty of Management.The role of face as mediator and moderator was tested. The results showed that the value of the material, face self-awareness and brand self-awareness have significant relationship with each other. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the face and material value have no significant interaction with each other and the role of the moderator's face was not supported by the data and face had partial mediating role in the relationship between the value of the material and brand consciousness. Considering that the present study theoretically examined the role of face in the relationship between material value and brand consciousness, it is recommended that the present study must be examined in a broader spatial domain and cover diverse and different classified range of consumers, So that we can apply the findings more generally and in this way reach to a better understanding of consumption of consumers culture http://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/index Page 2202

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