Hira Waseem (MSc, 2016-2018) Supervisor: Iram Fatima, PhD
University: Institute of Applied Psychology, Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan
Corresponding Address: Department of Applied Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Email: chairperson@appsy.pu.edu.pk, Phone: 92-42-9231245
Abstract:
The current study investigated the association between social influence, materialism and compulsive buying in young adults. It was hypothesized that social influence (i.e. normative influence and informative influence) and materialism were likely to be positively related to compulsive buying behaviour. Furthermore, it was also hypothesized that materialism were likely to mediate between social influence and compulsive buying behaviour. A sample of 167 young adults was taken within the age range of 18-25 years from public sector institutions. For this purpose, Compulsive Buying Scale (Valence, d’Astous & Fortier, 1988) was used to measure compulsive buying behaviour. Consumer Susceptibility to Interpersonal Influence (CSII; Bearden, Netemeyer & Teel, 1989) was used to measure social influence, Material value scale (Richins, 2004) was used to measure materialism in young adults. By Pearson product moment correlation analysis, it was found that social influence and materialism were positively related to compulsive buying behaviour. Mediation analysis through series of hierarchical regression and Sobel z– test showed that materialism mediated between social influence and compulsive buying behaviour. Hence the study concluded that social influence and materialism were important predictors of compulsive buying and materialism plays an important role of mediator between social influence and compulsive buying. High levels of social influence and materialism would result in increased levels of compulsive buying.
Keywords: Social influence, normative influence, informative influence, materialism, compulsive buying.
