Investigating the impacts of social media on the influential factors affecting the intention to pursue plastic surgery among gen Y consumers in Thailand

Abstract

This study intends to investigate the influence of source credibility and argument quality of social media on the attitude toward plastic surgery, and to further investigate the influence of attitude toward plastic surgery, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on the intention to pursue plastic surgery. The quantitative approach was employed with the use of questionnaire survey focusing on Thai consumers aged 18-35 in Bangkok. The data collection involved the convenience sampling. The data was collected from 400 Gen Y respondents in Bangkok metropolitan area through online questionnaire provided by Google Forms. The multiple linear regression was used as the statistical technique for the hypothesis testing. Of 400 respondents, the majority of them were female, and were 23 – 30 years old. Most respondents had Bachelor’s degree as their highest education level, and earned around 15,000 – 30,000 baht per month. All respondents in this study usually used social media in their daily lives, in which Facebook was mostly used; followed by Line, Instagram, YouTube, and Pantip, respectively.The results from the hypothesis testing indicated that source credibility and argument quality can collectively explain the attitude toward plastic surgery among Gen Y by 59.9%. Source credibility of social media negatively affects the attitude toward plastic surgery, while argument quality positively affects the attitude toward plastic surgery. Meanwhile, attitude toward plastic surgery, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control positively affects the intention to pursue plastic surgery.