Compulsive buying – a growing concern? An examination of gender, age, and endorsement of materialistic values as predictors
Open accessAbstract
Compulsive buying is an understudied, but growing, dysfunctional consumer behaviour with harmful psychological and financial consequences. Clinical perspectives treat it as a psychiatric disorder, whereas recent proposals emphasize the increasing endorsement of materialistic values as a cause of uncontrolled buying (e.g. ; ). The present research aims to improve understanding of compulsive buying through examining gender, age, and endorsement of materialistic values as key predictors in three UK questionnaire studies, which sampled individuals who had contacted a self‐help organization and residentially matched ‘controls’ ( N =330), consumer panelists from a multinational corporation ( N =250), and 16‐ to 18‐year‐old adolescents ( N =195). The results confirmed previously documented gender differences, and showed that younger people are more prone to compulsive buying. The central findings were that materialistic value endorsement emerged as the strongest predictor of individuals' compulsive buying, and that it significantly mediated the observed age differences.
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On average, younger individuals are more materialistic than older ones.
“On average, younger individuals are more materialistic than older ones (Dittmar, 2005).”
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- Authors
- Dittmar, H.
- Affiliations
- University of Sussex (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Dittmar, Helga
- ORCID
- Dittmar, Helga
- Venue
- British Journal of Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2005-11
- Volume
- 96
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 467-491
- ISSN
- 0007-1269 (ISSN-L)
- 2044-8295
- OpenAlex
- W2152650689
- Cited by
- 567
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 36 · 2019: 45 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 26
- FWCI
- 28.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Locations
- British Journal of Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Retail Behavior Studies
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Gambling Behavior and Treatments
- Keywords
- compulsive buying, materialism, gender differences, age differences, adolescents, self-help organizations
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Commerce, Compulsive Behavior, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Sampling Studies, Sex Factors, Social Values, Prevalence
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