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The Psychology of Impulse Buying: An Integrative Self-Regulation Approach

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Abstract

Impulsive buying grossly violates the assumptions of homo economicus. A variety of perspectives on impulse buying are presented, which have been put forward in consumer, economic, social, and clinical psychology. These include heuristic information processing, time-inconsistent preferences, personality traits and values, self-identity, emotions, conscious self-control, and compulsive buying. These perspectives may sometimes lead to contradictory or paradoxical findings. For instance, impulse buying is often associated with joy and pleasure but has also been found related to negative emotions and low self-esteem. Our argument is that impulsive buying can be understood in terms of psychological functioning, in particular as a form of self-regulation. Regulatory focus theory is then used to bring the various perspectives together by classifying each as a promotion focus strategy (e.g., seeking pleasure) or a prevention focus strategy (e.g., avoiding feelings of low self-esteem). Finally, the question is discussed whether consumers can and should be protected against impulsivity. Our assertion is that regulation against misleading practices that play on the vulnerabilities of impulsive buyers could be sharpened and that information provision to consumers and retailers aimed at strengthening consumers’ self-regulatory capacities may mitigate adverse consequences of impulse buying.

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Notes

  1. Self-regulation is sometimes equated with self-control (e.g., Baumeister 2002). Although exerting self-control may often be an important tool for self-regulation, self-control refers to conscious and deliberate processes, whereas self-regulation may also encompass automatic and nonconscious processes (e.g., Dijksterhuis and Aarts 2010; Vohs and Baumeister 2004).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Tara Bailey, Helga Dittmar, Helmut Jungermann, David Mair, Alan Mathios, Jan Trzaskowski, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Bas Verplanken & Ayana Sato

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  1. Bas Verplanken
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  2. Ayana Sato
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Correspondence to Bas Verplanken.

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Verplanken, B., Sato, A. The Psychology of Impulse Buying: An Integrative Self-Regulation Approach. J Consum Policy 34, 197–210 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-011-9158-5

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