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Abstract

This paper is aimed at focusing the women’s decision making styles and role of personality traits / attitudes in determining the decision making styles.  The conflicting resolution styles between husband and wife in the families of the respondents in respect of making the decision towards purchase of consumer durables are also explored here.  The relationship between decision making styles and socio-economic status of the women is also evaluated empirically.  Before going for the full fledged analysis, the collected data measuring personality traits / attitudes and decision making styles, are first subjected to reliability / item analysis in order to ascertain the validity and reliability scale items. After determining the validity and reliability of scale items, the data are then subjected to Principal component method of factor analysis in order to explore the underlying characteristics (also called as dimensions) of personality traits / attitudes and decision making styles. The major factors underlying these two attributes are then used in the further analysis.  The status of personality traits / attitudes and decision making style is ascertained by descriptive analysis of the scores of the extracted factors.  The score of each factor is obtained by averaging the scores of the high correlated actual items with that factor. The relationship of socio-economic status with personality traits / attitudes and decision making styles as well as with conflicting decision making styles is evaluated by comparing the mean perception level across sub-groups under each socio-economic variables. The personality traits / attitudes and decision making style factor that differentiate between non-working and working women is explored by discriminant analysis. The effect of personality traits on decision making styles of the women is analyzed by canonical correlation analysis.  The results of the analysis are tabulated and interpreted hereunder.


 

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