The Correlation Between Desire Thinking and Compulsive Buying

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.211209.316How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Desire thinking; compulsive buying; verbal perseveration; imaginal prefiguration; correlational study; shopping

Abstract

In today’s developed society, purchasing is made easier than ever before with new technology and online stores, causing products to be more accessible to shoppers who spend excessively without control. Through a proposed experiment, this study investigates the effectiveness of desire thinking, a voluntary cognitive process, in preventing this problematic behaviour - compulsive buying. The experiment recruits a total sample of 300 shoppers from the general population who have shopped consistently in the past few years and are 18 years of age or older. Results from self-reported questionnaires demonstrate the correlation between desire thinking and participants suffering from compulsive buying disorder compared to the correlation between desire thinking and participants without compulsive buying disorder. The expected results indicate that higher levels of desire thinking positively correlate with compulsive buying. This is because desire thinking would only cause an increased amount of craving and negative affect long-term since the desired target of shopping is perseveratively elaborated upon and not achieved. Therefore, because desire thinking can be used to increase shopping tendencies in those suffering from compulsive buying, this paper analyzes how desire thinking can be utilized by marketers and retailers to increase craving and encourage those affected by compulsive buying to continue compulsively purchasing products.

Copyright

© 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press International B.V.

Open Access

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Gisele Liu
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/12/15
TI  - The Correlation Between Desire Thinking and Compulsive Buying
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 3rd International Conference on Economic Management and Cultural Industry (ICEMCI 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1938
EP  - 1942
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.211209.316
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.211209.316
ID  - Liu2021
ER  -