Three essays on attire, social media use, and the fear of missing out

ABSTRACT

This dissertation consists of three related research studies investigating attire, social media, and the fear of missing out.The first research study, framed through impression management theory, investigates the association between an employee's chosen work attire and their work productivity while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two surveys collected the data for this research study. The first was completed in June 2020 and is an exploratory qualitative study and the second took place one year later, in June 2021, through an exploratory quantitative study. Results show a weak association between an employee's chosen work attire and self-perceived work productivity measures, specifically related to quality of work, work ethic, motivation at work, and mental health.The second study examines the relationship of social media use and financial hardship. Using insights from the financial capability framework and social identity theory, we ask, first, whether the frequency of social media use across the day is associated with an individual's ability to make ends meet and accumulate an emergency savings one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, this study examines the mediating role of fear of missing out. Using a general population sample from the Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 Survey at Washington University in St. Louis, ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression findings indicate a strong relationship of social media use and financial outcomes, and that this relationship is partially mediated by the fear of missing out. These results shed light on the role of interventions that target the role of social media use in preventing financial hardship situations.The third study explores the relationship between the fear of missing out, parasocial interactions, social shopping, and wellbeing, specifically looking at social, psychological, and financial wellbeing. Using data collected via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (mTurk), this study examined individuals aged 18-40 who use social media and follow influencers. Structural equation modeling indicates significant relationships between six investigated relationships, including (1) fear of missing out to parasocial interactions, (2), fear of missing out to social shopping, (3) fear of missing out to social, psychological, and financial wellbeing, (4) parasocial interactions to social shopping, (5) parasocial interactions to social, psychological, and financial wellbeing and, (6) social shopping to social, psychological, and financial wellbeing. These findings highlight the relationship that experiencing the fear of missing out can have on a person's wellbeing through parasocial interactions and social shopping. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)