A Hierarchical Personality Approach Toward a Fuller Understanding of Onychophagia and Compulsive Buying

Abstract

Purpose Employing a hierarchical model of personality, prior research suggests that cardinal traits such as conscientiousness and agreeability predict central traits such as materialism and need for arousal that in turn impact surface traits such as onychophagia and compulsive buying. More research is needed to explore additional central traits and their effect on onychophagia and compulsive buying. Thus, the goal of the current research is to examine how another central trait—negative perfectionism—impacts onychophagia and compulsive buying. Design/Methodology/Approach A survey was administered both online and face-to-face resulting in a sample of 634 subjects of which 391 were individuals with onychophagia. Through a multi-group analysis, a causal model was tested to identify personality traits and their relationship with compulsive buying. Results Results showed that onychophagia was affected by other obsessive-compulsive disorders—particularly trichotillomania, and excoriation disorder, which significantly increased the likelihood that the participant was a compulsive buyer.

Big Five Personality Traits and Compulsive Buying: The Mediating Role of Self-Esteem

“…As far as the field of CB is concerned, although empirical evidence is limited, previous studies have found that the FFM traits have a critical role in explaining certain people's predisposition to developing CB [7]. More specifically, the findings obtained from this model thoroughly confirm that whereas neuroticism is a major risk factor for CB [10,21,23,24,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41], conscientiousness is a protection factor for this problem [21][22][23]37,39]. As for extraversion, most studies report positive, albeit modest, correlations with CB [23,41].…”

“…Beyond the isolated study of personal determinants, an unprecedented interest in the analysis of CB has emerged in the last few years [20][21][22][23][24] within the context of a proposal with a high heuristic value in the field of personality psychology: the five factor model (FFM) [25]. This model is currently the most consensual and validated taxonomy of personality traits [26].…”

What Do We Know When We Know a Compulsive Buying Person? Looking at Now and Ahead

“…A completely different picture emerges as far as the robustness of the findings with respect to the relation between neuroticism (the tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression) and conscientiousness (the tendency to be organized, strong-willed, persistent, reliable, and a follower of rules and ethical principles) and compulsive buying. An overwhelming majority of studies show a positive and significant relation with regard to neuroticism and a negative relation in the case of conscientiousness and compulsive buying [ 42 , 43 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 54 , 55 ]. Compulsive buying often becomes a way out of negative emotions, which seriously compromises self-control.…”

“…The models proposed generally consider the Big Five as exogenous variables, a wide range of variables with a potentially mediating role and compulsive buying as the endogenous variable. Specifically, and in order to summarize the main proposals, attention has been paid to whether materialism [ 50 , 54 ], impulsive buying [ 58 ], gluttony [ 59 ], hedonistic shopping experiences [ 47 ], negative perfectionism [ 55 ], or a past-negative time perspective [ 60 ] channel the influence of the five in compulsive buying. From the main results obtained in the different studies, it has been confirmed that conscientiousness has a direct negative effect on compulsive buying [ 47 , 50 , 54 ], while the positive impact of extraversion on this problem is mediated by materialism [ 50 , 54 ] or hedonistic shopping experiences [ 47 ].…”

“…Furthermore, a positive indirect effect of openness to experience is confirmed for compulsive buying through materialism [ 54 ], impulsive buying [ 58 ], and hedonistic shopping experiences [ 47 ]. As to neuroticism, evidence is found of both direct positive effects [ 50 , 54 ] and indirect positive effects through materialism [ 50 , 54 ], impulsive buying [ 58 ], gluttony [ 59 ], hedonistic shopping experiences [ 47 ], perfectionism [ 55 ], and a past-negative time perspective [ 60 ] in compulsive buying.…”