Clothing behavior as predictor of self-confidence among adolescent girls

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of proximity of clothing to self and perceived clothing deprivation with self-confidence among three different socio-economic groups, to find the moderating effect of socio-economic status on this relationship and to find the percentage of variance in self-confidence as predicted by proximity of clothing to self and perceived clothing deprivation of adolescent girls. Participants were 600 adolescent girls (200 each from low, middle and high socio-economic group) aged between 15-18 years from only girls schools of Jaipur city. They completed a questionnaire that included measures of socio-economic status, proximity of clothing to self, perceived clothing deprivation, and self-confidence. Correlation analysis, sub-group analysis and regression analysis indicated no significant correlation between proximity of clothing to self and self-confidence. Socio-economic status is not found to have any moderating effect on the relationship between proximity of clothing to self and self-confidence and proximity of clothing to self does not account for any significant amount of variance in self-confidence. Perceived clothing deprivation has a significant negative relationship with self-confidence. Socio-economic status has moderating effect on the relationship between perceived clothing deprivation and self-confidence in the low/high and middle/high sub-group. Perceived clothing deprivation causes 11.1% variance in self-confidence.