Abstract
Commonly used scales of compulsive buying do not adequately capture the complexity of compulsive buying as a multidimensional construct, and it is impossible to gain insights into the structure of the dimensions of compulsive buying and their relationship with other individual differences when the items measuring compulsive buying are aggregated into an overall score. The first objective of this paper is to offer a revision of Müller et al.’s (PLoS One, 10(10), e0141094, 2015b) two-factor Pathological Buying Screener (PBS). Based on online surveys with three large samples of English-speaking Canadians (N = 2,000, 1151, and 941), we propose a revised scale (the 4FPBS) consisting of four dimensions: excessive buying (EB), the phenomenological experiences (PH) associated with compulsive buying (which incorporate preoccupation with buying, buying urges, and mood repair), and both the financial problems (FP) and interpersonal problems (IP) resulting from compulsive buying. The second objective is to demonstrate the benefits of retaining four separate dimensions. We propose a structural model of the 4FPBS according to which EB leads to PH, which in turn leads to FP and IP. In addition, both the linear and interactive effects of five personal characteristics (depression, trait self-control, self-esteem, and overt and covert narcissism) on the four compulsive buying dimensions and the relationships between the four dimensions are investigated.
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Data Availability
Data are available on request from the authors.
Notes
We were not aware of Andreassen et al.’s (2015) Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale when we collected the data for this study. Briefly, the Bergen scale was developed based on the addiction paradigm and contains one item each (the highest-loading item from an initial 28-item scale) to measure seven elements of addiction: salience (preoccupation), mood modification (mood repair), conflict (similar to interpersonal problems), tolerance, relapse (similar to loss of control), withdrawal (similar to distress), and problems (similar to financial problems, but more general).
This eligibility criterion was adopted to exclude individuals who engage in little impulsive buying day-to-day while ensuring that a sufficiently large sample size would be achieved within a reasonable length of time spent on data collection.
In the two-factor solution, the first factor captured financial and interpersonal problems as well as preoccupation, distress, loss of control, and self-conscious reactions, while the second factor captured excessive buying, buying urge, and mood repair. These results were not entirely consistent with the findings of Mueller et al. (2015b). In the three-factor solution, the first factor was identical to the first factor in the two-factor solution, except that the preoccupation ¬items formed a separate factor. The third factor consisted of three of the excessive buying items.
We also estimated a longitudinal factor model for the respondents who provided data in both the initial data collection and the follow-up study. In this model the error terms of identical items were allowed to correlate over time (in order to split the unique item variance into specific and random error variance), and the factor correlations were freely estimated both within time period and over time. The disattenuated test–retest correlations were .68, .81, .83 and .69 for EB, PH, FP and IP, respectively. Based on these findings, one may conclude that the phenomenology and financial problems dimensions are somewhat more stable than excessive buying and interpersonal problems (at least over a one-month time period).
Although Müller et al.’s 2-factor scale does not fit the data well, we report the correlations between the 2 factors in the original scale and the 4 factors in the revised scale for completeness. Specifically, the first (excessive buying) factor was correlated .97, .73, .61, and .51 with EB, PH, FP and IP, respectively. The very high correlation with EB is not surprising since the items are almost identical. The second (loss of control/consequences) factor was correlated .65, .82, .90, and .86 with EB, PH, FP and IP, respectively. Apparently, the second factor is most closely related to negative financial consequences.
To mitigate possible multicollinearity problems as much as possible, we only included interactions that were significant when the personal characteristics were considered one at a time. The results are reported in Appendix Table 4. For CESD, the (positive) effect of PH on IP becomes stronger (weaker) at higher (lower) levels of depression in both samples. For TSC, the (positive) effects of (a) EB on PH and (b) PH on FP get weaker (stronger) at higher (lower) levels of self-control in one of the samples. For RSES, the (positive) effect of EB on PH becomes weaker (stronger) at higher (lower) levels of self-esteem in one sample. For HSNS, the (positive) effects of EB on PH and (b) PH on IP get stronger (weaker) at higher (lower) levels of covert narcissism. And finally, for NPI the (positive) effect of PH on IP becomes stronger (weaker) at higher (lower) levels of overt narcissism.
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We acknowledge that this research was funded by SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council: Standard Grant #430132) awarded to Sunghwan Yi.
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Yi, S., Baumgartner, H. A 4-Factor Revision of the Pathological Buying Screener: the Structure of Compulsive Buying and its Relationship with Five Personal Characteristics. Int J Ment Health Addiction (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-023-01116-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-023-01116-9