The personality puzzle: a comprehensive analysis of its impact on three buying behaviors

Abstract

This study aimed at examining the role of personality traits in impulsive buying, compulsive buying, and panic buying simultaneously during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the third confinement announced by the Portuguese government, 485 Portuguese answered in this study, mean age of 41.9 years (min = 18, max = 84; SD = 12.9), and 29.9% were men. Analyzes were carried out to investigate the association of Big Five’s personality factors with impulsive buying, compulsive buying, and panic buying. Results showed that the three buying behaviors under study have significant and positive correlations between them, and they also correlate with different personality traits. The association of each Big Five factor on buying behaviors differed. While conscientiousness was negatively and openness was positively associated with impulsive buying, conscientiousness was negatively associated with compulsive buying, agreeableness was positively associated with panic buying, and neuroticism correlated positively with all consumer behaviors. Understanding the personality traits that contribute to the development of a disorder may provide valuable insight into preventive measures and effective treatment approaches for some debilitating disorders. This study opens ways for investigating impulsive buying and compulsive buying by relating them to panic buying. It discusses the three different buying behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic and future consumer research directions involving other variables.

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].…”

Effects of compulsive buying on debt avoidance and self-esteem: Can brand addiction serve as a socially responsible mediator?

“…Psychological influences coincide with human traits, such as emotional instability, anxiety, low self-esteem and depression, and are considered a key factor in the development of compulsive behavior. Many recent studies have focused on a more detailed consideration of the connection between different personality characteristics and compulsive buying (Tarka, Harnish, & Babaev, 2022;Tarka, Kukar-Kinney, & Harnish, 2022;Otero-López, 2022;Moon, Faheem, & Farooq, 2022;Rizzo, Sestino, Pino, Guido, Nataraajan, & Harnish, 2023;Ali, Tauni, & Ali, 2023;Mert & Tengilimoğlu, 2023;Aquino & Lins, 2023). The genesis of compulsive buying behavior is linked to external factors like pricing, product promotion, and credit cards (Workman & Paper, 2010).…”