Alienation is a situation where individuals aren''t integrated into the relationship with society or feel distance, when inequalities and disparities environmentally are recognized, alienation appears in an effort to solve them, and it occurs in a situation where individuals feel the gap between what they want and the social system(Seeman, 1971). What consumer alienation is that consumers feel they are isolated from the norms and values of the market(Alison, 1978), which is alienation consumers feel. This consumer alienation is one of the serious problems which consumption-oriented culture in modern society has, which an important issue that must be resolved to achieve individual satisfactory life as a consumer and consumer welfare through social integration and balance. Consumer alienation is needed to explain, predict its causes through understanding economic aspects of modern society, social and cultural contexts of the hidden side of the consumption because it is likely to be worse with economic development, the growth of consumerism.
Accordingly, in this paper, this researcher rearranges the concept of consumer alienation through previous research, grasps the characteristics of the consumers who feel consumer alienation through substantial research, and analyzes structural relationships between variables further affecting consumer alienation.
The study investigates the relationship between each type of the purchase behavior styles and relative deprivation, consumer alienation and consumption satisfaction by dividing consumers'' purchase behavior styles into brand pursuit, impulse buying, rational consumption. In addition, the researcher examines structural relationships with the influence of the purchase behavior styles, relative deprivation, consumption satisfaction on consumer alienation''s each area by classifying consumer alienation to each type.
To summarize the findings, only impulse buying among the purchase behavior styles had an effect on relative deprivation, and impulse buying, brand pursuit, rational consumption''s all types of the purchase behavior styles affected consumption satisfaction. Also, relative deprivation had a negative impact on consumption satisfaction in the relationships between relative deprivation and consumption satisfaction. In the relationships with consumer alienation, relative deprivation had an influence on consumer alienation''s sub-areas, but consumption satisfaction had nothing to do with consumer alienation''s sub-areas.
These results showed the purchase behavior styles had an impact on consumer alienation depending on the relationships in the effect between relative deprivation and consumption satisfaction rather than a direct cause of the consumer alienation. In the case of impulse buying''s effect on consumption satisfaction, there was no effect relationships with consumer alienation, while in the case of its effect on relative deprivation, there was an effect relationships with consumer alienation''s sub-areas. Besides, brand pursuit, rational consumption had no effect relationships with relative deprivation and affected only consumption satisfaction so they had no relationships with consumer alienation.
Research on consumer alienation are still lack so the study to investigate the structural relationships of the relevant effect factors should be consistently performed. Therefore, through this, we can seek alternatives to solve consumer alienation''s problems, ant it can be utilized to develop educational programs to resolve consumer alienation''s problems.
These studies make companies and the country increase interest on consumer alienation phenomenon, this interest leads to troubleshooting of the consumer alienation so we expect they contribute to enhancing consumer welfare in Korea.