The Study on Compulsive Buying as Self-Defeating Behavior : Focused on Social Exclusion Factor

Purpose - This study investigated the effect of the social exclusion experience on the compulsive buying tendency. The purpose of current study is to examine the mechanism through compulsive buying, one of selfdefeating behaviors. While previous studies on compulsive buying focused only on the mechanism of psychological escapism to overcome negative emotions, this study intends to expand the study on the causes of compulsive buying by presenting a social exclusion experience as one of the causes of negative emotions. Research design and methodology - Present study was performed with 114 university students. Participants were assigned to one of two groups at random - the social exclusion experience group and the social exclusion nonexperience group. Authors analyzed the influence of social exclusion experience on the compulsive buying. Results - The social exclusion experience group showed compulsive buying tendency than the social exclusion non-experience group. Conclusions - People with social exclusion experiences avoid self-awareness and show cognitive narrowing, which leads to compulsive buying. Academic implications and practical implications of current research were discussed and the limitations were suggested.