Impulse buying in ordinary and "compulsive" consumers

This chapter explores what drives people toward impulse buying as consumers attempt to deal with discrepancies between the way they see themselves (actual self) and the way they would like to be (ideal self). Several hypotheses can be derived from the social psychological model of impulse buying: some consumer goods make more likely impulse buys than others; self-image concerns are a particularly important decision consideration in impulsive and excessive buying; and systematic differences exist between excessive and ordinary consumers in impulse buying, self-concept, and consumption values, and buying behavior can be predicted from a person's self-discrepancies if he or she has materialistic values. These hypotheses were tested in 3 linked studies that drew on different methodological approaches. A mail survey was used to collect questionnaire measures of planned and impulsive buying behavior, buying motivations, shopping attitudes, and self-concept. In the second study, the authors developed a computer-run study on discount rates for different consumer goods. Finally, the authors carried out qualitative research on the process of, and reasons for, impulse buying using in-depth interviews and shopping diaries.