I realized my Master’s thesis in Clinical Psychology on the subject “Compulsive buying and vulnerability to marketing”. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how publicity and price, two elements of marketing, influence buying behaviors with compulsive buyers and normal buyers. The overall workforce of this experiment is 242 participants, with a sample of 34 compulsive buyers and a control group of 208 subjects. The primary objective is to identify the marketing factors that influence buying behavior, drawing a distinction between people with and without compulsive buying. Then we will also evaluate various psychological characteristics (motivations to buy, impulsivity and self-esteem).
The literature suggests that compulsive buying are considered to be a behavioral addiction, an addiction without substance who governed by pleasure, avoidance, suffering … Compulsive buyers are mostly female. This dependence, which could be described as instinctual commitment, is irreversible and chronic, and allows the emergence of an internal tension that pushes the individual into a buying sequence. Acquisitions, which are generally useless, put people in a precarious situation and cause many social difficulties, particularly with their family and friends. There are comorbidities to compulsive shopping e.g. depressive symptoms, anxiety or personality disorders. A person suffering from compulsive shopping has personality traits such as low self-esteem, heightened emotional sensitivity or a constant search for excitement and strong sensations. However, this disorder is not yet recognized in the DSM-5 even if it is integrated by addictologists into the spectrum of addictive disorders.
Subsequently, I link compulsive buying with the present societal environment : a overconsumption society that promotes individualism and “bad” information. Marketing is governed by the 4Ps according to McCarthy (1960) : Product, Price, Publicity and Place. I chose to focus on price and publicity, two components of marketing. According to various authors, the price makes it possible to obtain a positive profit and a satisfaction. Compulsive buyers have better knowledge and awareness of prices; this is why they would take more pleasure in buying cheaply and doing “deals”. Advertising allows brands to individualize, to create an identity in which customers could recognize themselves. Many other parameters, such as the atmosphere, music, light can create tension on the buyer and therefore precipitate his decision to purchase. Purchase motivations have been separated into extrinsic and intrinsic aspirations such as image conformity, self-acceptance, group membership. These aspirations bring them satisfaction and success.
Then I posed three general hypotheses, each with three operational assumptions:
– People identified as compulsive buyers will have a greater sensitivity to marketing than control subjects (presence of sales, brands and prestigious brands, importance of “packaging”).
– Individuals identified as compulsive buyers will have different results from self-report questionnaires (BMQ, UPPS and EES) compared to control subjects (UPPS score, lower self-esteem, higher BMQ score).
– The personal dimensions are related with the vulnerability to marketing (impulsivity, low self-esteem and motivations for purchasing, coping, positive and social reinforcement are predictive of vulnerability to marketing).
To this study, I therefore used various self-evaluation questionnaires and the creation of purchasing scenarios. The questionnaire was developed and proposed online on the Googleforms platform, so it respected the ethical and deontological rules (informed consent form, anonymity …).To analyse the data, I sorted the data and carried out the basic calculations on Excel in order to have data for the statistical software SPSS.
In conclusion, compulsive shoppers have a better understanding of market prices given their store traffic. They get a high degree of satisfaction when they buy a highly discounted item because they really feel that they have made a purchase that saves them money. The brand of store is, maybe, an extension of the identification. Through prestigious brands, the compulsive buyer seeks to assert his personality or to access something, a status, an object of wich he can’t guarantor. Attractive packaging attracts more attention and is more appealing to both normal and compulsive buyers. Compulsive buyers have a higher level of impulsivity and buy to gain personal satisfaction or avoidance of negative affects. As the notion of coping assumes, compulsive buyers make purchases to compensate for, cope with a stressful or unpleasant situation. This could be for them a way of finding a balance between their internal tensions and the outside world. These purchases allow the individual to re-evaluate himself, belong to a group or try to climb the social ladder by the accession to an outer envelope, a certain appearance. The appearance of this disorder could be correlated with the emergence of a market economy, overconsumption, permanent search for personal satisfaction and access to self-fulfillment. These compulsive buyers are therefore more influenced by marketing practices, by the promotional deals, low prices and also by brand images or packaging. These branded images as the use of a brand ambassador encourage compulsive buyers to continue their quest for identity, perhaps even more so among young people. The clothes and the outward appearance are the reflection of our identity or what we wish to be or appear in front of the outside world. This is why the dimensions that most impact marketing vulnerability are a positive reinforcement, the access of more satisfying feelings and the expected social level.
This research from a clinical point of view, bring informations and details on the personality of the compulsive buyers and in particular on their motivations for purchases. This could allow different practitioners to consider that these people are achieving through marketing practices and to bring new approaches may be based on information and risk prevention. We could also introduced various desensitization exercises to marketing practices.
Key words : Compulsive buying ; Vulnerability to marketing ; Self-esteem ; Motivations for purchase
Julie Mariez, M2 PCPI student.
