The Silent Crisis of Impulsive Shopping: How Mental Health and Personality Fuel Consumer Destruction
90.42% of Gen Z and Millennials engage in impulsive online shopping, according to McDonald’s ‘Survey Reveals Top Reasons Gen Zers and Millennials Make Impulse Purchases.’ This behavior can serve as a coping mechanism for individuals with mental health issues, reinforcing negative emotions and leading to a cycle of emotional distress and reckless spending. By examining how cognitive biases and personality traits influence buying decisions, we’ll see how mental health factors contribute to impulsive shopping, worsening the impact on both financial stability and well-being.
Mental health plays a crucial role in shaping cognitive buying behavior. For individuals with mood disorders, fluctuations in mental state can drive impulsive purchasing as a way to improve their mood. However, this temporary relief often leads to feelings of guilt and emotional distress, creating a cycle of compulsive buying. In cases like compulsive buying disorder, the link between mental health and impulsive buying is even more direct, with mental state playing a key role in driving these behaviors.
In Psychiatry Research, Brook et al. comment that compulsive buying disorder is characterized by persistent, repetitive buying behavior that is primarily in response to negative stimuli, such as negative feelings or circumstances, and affects one quality of life. Brook et al. continue, mentioning that those suffering with this disorder tend to find themselves with issues such as financial difficulties, debt, and credit card abuse. As proven by Psychiatry Research, compulsive buying disorder is no joke as this disorder is a behavioral addiction, and is known to stem from atypical childhood and adolescent environments.
In the digital era, a disorder such as compulsive buying disorder is as easy as any to exploit. Online platforms are made to enable such negative impulsive behavior through buying features such as one-click purchasing, targeted advertisements, and limited-time offers, which create a fake sense of urgency. Online merchants know this, and actively search for research into compulsive buying looking forways to trigger impulsive buying in their consumers. In individuals with compulsive buying disorder, such elements can further a cycle of behavior where negative feelings lead to irresponsible purchases, continuing feelings of guilt and financial strain. This isn’t something unsurprising, though, as platforms are aware of cognitive buying behavior as well as mental health disorders that fuel their ever growing businesses.
The effects of the exploitative nature of online shopping in understanding cognitive buying behavior go beyond mere financial loss; these online businesses inflict damage on their consumers’ personal lives as well. Psychiatry Research further states that those suffering from compulsive buying disorder often face marital discord, family issues, and emotional hardship as a direct result of this exploitation.
Kamm describes Julia, a middle-aged woman overwhelmed by a failing marriage, restless twins, a sick father, and a shaky career. In an attempt to cope, she spends over eight hours a day scrolling for clothes. This habit becomes addictive, and when she can’t scroll, she becomes agitated. However, the real problem is the impact on her family. While fixated on finding the perfect boots, Julia neglects her children at the park, failing to notice her daughter fall off a swing—another mother had to step in. Julia’s compulsive scrolling, though a way to escape her troubled life, ultimately causes her to neglect her responsibilities as a mother.
Online shopping platforms, while profiting from consumers’ vulnerabilities, neglect the emotional toll their practices impose. This exploitation not only undermines individual well-being but also destroys relationships, and calls attention to a troubling disconnect between corporate profit motives and the mental health of consumers. Mental health disorders that deal with impulsivity such as compulsive buying disorder directly influence an individual’s cognitive buying behavior. However, a more thorough understanding of what influences such cognitive buying behaviors can be gained by looking at various personality traits.
In the psychology of personality, certain traits are linked to specific buying behaviors. The article The Personality Puzzle explores how impulsive buying, a behavior characterized by spontaneous and unplanned purchases, is strongly associated with high neuroticism. Neuroticism involves emotional instability and a tendency to experience negative moods, which can lead individuals to make impulsive purchases in an attempt to alleviate these emotions. As neuroticism increases, the likelihood of making impulsive purchases to improve mood also rises, highlighting the connection between psychological traits and cognitive buying behaviors.
Aquino, S. D., & Lins, S. note that compulsive buying, defined as excessive and uncontrolled purchasing that causes harm and distress, is often predicted by a combination of openness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Openness refers to the willingness to embrace new experiences and engage in analytical thinking, while agreeableness is characterized by friendliness, cooperation, and compassion toward others. However, when these positive traits are combined with neuroticism—a personality trait marked by emotional instability, anxiety, and a tendency toward negative moods—they can become problematic. People high in neuroticism may engage in compulsive buying as a way to cope with emotional distress, often making purchases impulsively to self-soothe or alleviate negative feelings. These individuals may not be buying to please others, but rather to please themselves, seeking temporary relief from their emotional turmoil.
In understanding all three psychological personality traits, openness, agreeableness, and neuroticism, correlations can be drawn regarding their influence on compulsive buying behavior. Individuals high in openness are often more willing to try new products and experiences, which can lead to compulsive and unplanned purchases. Furthermore, those with a high level of agreeableness may have a tendency to prioritize the needs of others, thus promoting overspending and compulsive buying. Not only this , individuals scoring high in neuroticism increase their likelihood of making compulsive purchases as a way to cope with their negative moods. Their emotional instability can drive them to seek immediate gratification through shopping, furthering their compulsive behaviors. In understanding all three of the traits and how they interconnect with compulsive buying behaviors, the relationship between personality traits and consumer behavior is shown.
Cognitive buying behaviors are influenced by mental health and personality traits, which can determine whether an individual’s buying behavior is typical or atypical. In the case of compulsive buying disorder, research suggests that this condition may involve distorted cognitive processes, which affect the individual’s purchasing habits. While studies indicate that factors such as adverse childhood experiences and negative emotional states can contribute to the development of compulsive buying behaviors, these connections are complex and not fully understood. Individuals with compulsive buying disorder may use shopping as a coping mechanism to manage their emotional distress, reinforcing the cycle of impulsive purchases and further harming their quality of life.
Building on the discussion of cognitive buying behaviors, personality traits such as openness, agreeableness, and analytical thinking were also examined. Research shows that these traits play a significant role in shaping cognitive processes and can increase the likelihood of engaging in adverse buying behaviors. Given this, it’s important to consider the potential harm that online shopping can cause to consumers. With constant exposure to targeted advertisements, individuals may experience a weakening of impulse control on a daily basis. How many consumers, before the rise of online shopping, struggled with compulsive or impulsive buying? How many have developed a compulsive buying disorder since? While the answers are difficult to determine, these are critical questions for the public to consider in order to protect their finances and mental well-being from the influence of consumerist culture.
References
Aquino, S. D., & Lins, S. (2023, July 18). The personality puzzle: A comprehensive analysis of its impact on three buying behaviors. Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1179257/full 
Brook, J. S., Zhang, C., Brook, D. W., & Leukefeld, C. G. (2015). Compulsive buying: Earlier illicit drug use, impulse buying, depression, and adult ADHD symptoms. Psychiatry Research, 228(3), 312–317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2015.05.09
Kamm, R. (2020, May 26). “It Made Me Hate Myself”: How the Urge to Shop Can Ruin Lives. Retrieved November 20, 2024, from VICE website: https://www.vice.com/en/article/it-made-me-hate-myself-how-the-urge-to-shop-can-ruin-lives/
McDonald, J. (2024, June 26). Survey Reveals Top Reasons Gen Zers and Millennials Make Impulse Purchases. Retrieved November 20, 2024, from BadCredit.org website: https://www.badcredit.org/studies/gen-z-and-millennial-impulse-purchases/
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Let’s start with a title and a citation technique that matches our “house style,” Student1512. We don’t use parenthetical author tags in this class such as
(Aquino & Lins, 2023). Just incorporate the author’s name(s) into the body of your text and make a natural citation that uses them in the grammar of your sentences.https://rowancomp2.com/gathering-exercises/informal-citation/
You appear to have learned a lot from the two sources you cite. Can you make readers care with a vivid example, say, of someone who exhibits the dangerous personality traits that result in not just impulse buying but bankruptcies, divorces, evictions, homelessness . . . ?
It is said that Michael Jackson strolled through antique stores with someone following and casually pointed at everything that struck his fancy, which the attendant would duly note and then ship to Neverland. But Michael Jackson didn’t have to worry about paying his electric bill. His compulsion was kinda cute. For the rest of us, it would be tragic.
Even popular sources and commercial blogs can provide you anecdotal evidence more powerful than any generic “this is more crucial than ever” claims you can make to get your essay started:
https://www.badcredit.org/studies/gen-z-and-millennial-impulse-purchases/
My goal for this essay is to score around a 90-95%, in following your advice I hope to have made some progress towards that goal. Overall I want feedback regarding structuring, phrasing, and my citations (if they look okay). With your help and some more revisions I hope to achieve my goal. Thank you in advance for the help!
I really appreciate feedback on the feedback and advance directives like this one you’ve left for me, Student1512. Thank you for the clear instructions.
You need a semicolon in your first sentence:
🙂
First thing I see:
You know where the period belongs.
—Not so fast.
—Even if EVERYONE suffers from impulsive buying, what’s the harm?
—Everyone checks their phone for messages as often as they pet their dogs: what’s the harm?
—Without harm, it’s not “crucial to understand” the causes.
—Show the harm before you insist we need a solution.
—Very high “gibberish” factor here.
— “Cognitive behaviors . . . [are] shaped by . . . cognitive processes”?
— “how consumers think and behave . . . [is] shaped by psychological factors”?
—Doesn’t say much, does it?
Perhaps you clarify later in the paragraph:
— “Cognitive buying behaviors are influenced by mental health and personality traits.”
— “Consumer behavior . . . [is influenced by] both.”
—You tell me: did that clear things up?
I’m throwing this back to you without a Regrade just yet. Let’s take this in chunks.
[Ordinarily, I advise students to write their Introductions LAST, once they’ve fully developed their ideas and explained what needs to be explained. If you do that thoroughly in your body paragraphs, you don’t need much to get the ball rolling. Introductions can be very brief and designed more to spark a conflict or controversy, compel a reader to continue, rather than give away the whole game.
OR
They’re very brief and clear summaries that, despite their brevity, are vivid and non-mysterious.
Your choice.]
Or tell me to move on while you ponder the Intro. Maybe you really will decide to write it last.
Put yourself back into Feedback Please with further instructions.
This is fun. 🙂
All periods are now inside the parenthesis!
I reworked my intro a bit, if you could give that a once over that’d be appreciated. Other than that, I’d like to move on from my intro and instead start picking apart the body of my essay. Oh, and thank you for the reminder about the semicolon! 🙂
When looking at the body paragraphs I really want to make sure my point is getting across effectively and without flowery language (my tendency to be wordy escapes my control sometimes). I also want to make sure my citations are in order. Thank you!
The Intro is way better. Couple things, still.
90.42% of the newer generations suffer from impulsive online shopping, Mcdonald disclosed in the article “Survey Reveals Top Reasons Gen Zers and Millennials Make Impulse Purchases.” The impact is profound, as the perpetuation of impulsive online shopping enables poor coping mechanisms to those suffering with preexisting mental health conditions, which furthers a cycle of internal despair and external reckless spending. In exploring how cognitive buying behaviors are influenced by mental health and personality traits, we’ll see that the influence of both shape how we make consumer decisions for the worse.
—enables has a very positive connotation. Here it should not.
—internal/external. I understand the nice balance you’re going for, but despair can only be internal, and spending can only be external, so they sound disturbing.
—buying behaviors aren’t cognitive, they’re behavioral.
—concentrate on the mental health aspect, not the personality traits (which will trace back to mental health anyway).
—I assume making consumer decisions for the worse means make bad purchases.
That’s all I have time for at the moment, so I’ll leave this in Feedback Please for now. Back soon.
I’m going to highlight just one aspect of each paragraph that I would revise if this were my essay, Student1512. You’re handling your material well for the most part, so I want to encourage you, but with a topic as “squishy” as this one, readers like me are hungry for the quantifiable data that can convince us, so I suspect much of what I will highlight will be vague claims that can’t quite be proven.
If the “Mental health significantly influences” paragraph is #2, and the “In the digital era” paragraph is #3, I hope I can just refer to paragraphs by their number.
#2
This is a clearly causal paragraph that identifies a Causal Chain or Loop, but you don’t quite close the loop. Some unknown negative circumstances (you might care to specify even speculatively: a romantic rejection, failure to advance at work, . . . ) trigger a buying spree that temporarily boosts the mood of the compulsive buyer, but the resulting buyer’s remorse triggers, in turn, self-disgust or a bout of low self-esteem, which might be enough in itself to cause another spree; when the bills come, though, the real suffering begins, followed by late payments, credit cards declined, evictions, even bankruptcy, REAL negative circumstances. [This is where gamblers would borrow heavily and double down. Do the compulsive shoppers continue to binge?] Maybe you should sketch out this cycle BEFORE you offer the evidence from Brook et. al.
#3
Here, the opening strategy I’d use would be to suggest that the most eager consumers of the research into compulsive buying are online merchants. Make sure you establish that they comb through the journals looking for ways to trigger impulse purchases. Then, when you name them, readers will put the pieces together for you.
#4
This is the perfect time for an anecdote about a specific person (even if Julia is made up). But the anecdote doesn’t quite fit your narrative, or it isn’t quite clear what her actual behavior is. “Doom scrolling” isn’t “compulsive shopping,” and “8 hours a day shopping for one pair of boots” doesn’t really qualify either. Maybe if she bought 8 pairs of boots in search of the perfect pair . . . . Your narrative is also very wordy. And Julia’s situation doesn’t result from the particular skills of online merchandisers to keep her buying.
#5
Julia’s story seems to me to have more relevance somewhere in the middle of the story this paragraph tells. If you have a different anecdote about an over-spender who goes bankrupt, move that up to the Julia spot, and drop Julia in here where the emotional and interpersonal tolls are more relevant.
#6
I can’t follow your numbers.
—You promise us TWO predictable buying behaviors based on personality.
—Are Random purchasing, Thoughtless buying, and Direct purchasing three behaviors?
—Neuroticism appears to have two aspects (unstable emotions and negative moods), but they’re not behaviors.
—There’s not much difference between making “rash purchases” out of “emotional instability” and “impulsive buying behavior,” so I don’t think one “increases the possibility” of the other. They’re the same thing.
#7
This is the most interesting thing I’ve read so far! Very POSITIVE traits (openness, agreeableness, friendliness, cooperation, compassion, analytical thinking) appear to be catastrophic when combined with neuroticism. Do compulsive buyers make spontaneous purchases TO PLEASE OTHERS or themselves?
So, since you haven’t done so yet, it’s getting late to DEFINE or carefully describe what you mean by neurosis.
#8
—Which three to you mean this time? Name them in a sentence before you spread them out over a paragraph.
#9
So many causal paragraphs!
You write as if you had proved that compulsion is “formed through hardship and adverse childhood experiences,” but I don’t think we’ve seen the evidence.
#10
You write as if “personality traits” are some new category you haven’t yet discussed, but, surely openness, agreeableness, friendliness, cooperation, compassion, analytical thinking qualify as personality traits?
You’ve written almost 1300 words here, Student1512, not counting the References section so:
It’s not natural for all three essay TYPES (Def/Cause/Rebut) to just happen to require 1000 words.
And finally, I hope the fact that I have SO MUCH to say is not discouraging or overwhelming. Often, the fixes for these recommendations (should you elect to adopt them) are easier for you to accomplish than for me to describe.
I’ve seen no Revisions since my Feedback Round of NOV 23.
At last!
Radical revisions and major improvements. You can stop now (at least on this one).
🙂
Regraded.