Compulsive buying and hoarding as identity substitutes: The role of materialistic value endorsement and depression

Abstract

Purpose

In the present study, we investigated whether the relationship between identity confusion and compulsive buying (offline/online) and hoarding is mediated by materialistic value endorsement and depression.

Procedures

The community sample consisted of 254 Flemish adults who completed self-report questionnaires to assess identity confusion (Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory), compulsive buying tendencies (Compulsive Buying Scale/short-Internet Addiction Scale, adapted for shopping), hoarding tendencies (Saving-Inventory Revised), materialistic value endorsement (Materialistic Value Scale), and depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9).

Findings

We found significant positive associations between identity confusion, compulsive buying, and hoarding. The association between identity confusion and compulsive buying was fully mediated by materialistic value endorsement; whereas depression mediated the association between identity confusion and hoarding.

Conclusions

The results suggest that the collection or buying of material goods can be considered as identity substitutes.

Introduction

Buying and collecting possessions are widespread human behaviors. Like most human behaviors, buying can range from normal and adaptive to excessive or compulsive [1]. In the current literature, there is an ongoing discussion about the medicalization or overpathologizing of buying behaviors [2], [3]. We agree with authors like DeSarbo and Edwards and Dittmar that there exists heterogeneity within buyers ranging from normal to pathological [4], [5]. Compulsive buyers are extremely preoccupied by buying which leads to malfunctioning on the intra- and interpersonal level of functioning; whereas this is not the case for buyers within the normal range. Compulsive buying is characterized by an extreme preoccupation with buying or the experience of irresistible, intrusive, and/or senseless impulses to buy, frequently purchasing unneeded items or spending beyond one's mean, spending more time shopping than intended; and experiencing negative consequences such as distress, impaired social or occupational functioning, and/or financial problems [6], [7]. The prevalence estimates of compulsive buying in the general population range from 5.8% to 7% [8], [9]. Most studies found significant gender differences [10], [11], [12], with more compulsive buying in females. Additionally, many studies have confirmed the negative relationship between compulsive buying and age [13], that is, a decrease in compulsive buying by increasing age. Finally, compulsive buying occurs in conventional shops and stores, but there exists evidence that it increasingly migrates to the electronic marketplace [14]. Although the internet is becoming a significant buying context, studies on compulsive buying online are just starting to emerge [14], [15], [16], [17].

One widely accepted definition of hoarding is “the acquisition of, and failure to discard a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value; living spaces are sufficiently cluttered so as to preclude activities for which those spaces were designed; significant distress or impairment in functioning is caused by the hoarding” [18, p. 341]. The Hoarding Disorder is nowadays categorized as an own psychiatric entity within the category Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders in the DSM-5 with the specifier “excessive acquisition” including excessive buying [19]. In a representative German sample, the prevalence of hoarding was estimated to be around 4.6%, with no significant gender and age differences [1], [20]. The European Study of the Epidemiology of Mental Disorders reported a lower life-time prevalence rate of 2% of hoarding among individuals with no mental disorders [21]. Others reported a lifetime prevalence of hoarding of 4%, which increased with age, and was twice as high in men than women [22]. Correlations between compulsive buying and hoarding measures in the general population were situated around r = − .538 (p < .001) [20]. About 61% of participants classified as having compulsive hoarding, were also diagnosed as suffering from compulsive buying; vice versa 39% of participants with compulsive buying also reported hoarding [20]. Among hoarding participants who met criteria for clinically significant hoarding, 61% met criteria for a diagnosis of compulsive buying and approximately 85% reported excessive acquisition [23], [24], [25].

In search for an underlying psychological mechanism that constitutes a vulnerability factor for both compulsive buying and hoarding, ‘identity-seeking’ was put forward as a potential factor. Cushman's empty-self theory [26], [27], for example, assumes that persons with a poorly defined sense of identity attempt to gain fulfillment and a more complete identity by the acquisition and consumption of nonessential goods [28]. This empty self-theory was supported by findings that showed a positive association between materialism, compulsive buying, and lower self-concept clarity [28]. Dittmar and Drury [29] referred to the self-completion theory of Wicklund and Gollwitzer [30] in which consumer goods are considered as means of acquiring and expressing a sense of self-identity [31]. The self-completion theory assumes that perceiving shortcomings in one's identity produces motivation to compensate; and among those compensation strategies, acquiring and using material symbols are relevant [29]. Based on the perspective on compulsive buying as identity-seeking behavior, one foundc support for a 2-factor model of compulsive buying in women where the uncontrolled consumer behavior is jointly driven by self-discrepancies and materialistic values endorsement [5]. More recently, low self-esteem – besides low self-regulation, negative emotions and female gender – was described as a significant predictor of compulsive online shopping [32]. Similar tenets were forwarded in the domain of compulsive hoarding. Several authors argued that when individuals experience uncertainty about the self, they may attempt to restore their identities by seeing their possessions as expression of “who they are” [18], [33], [34]. People who hoard report that getting rid of a possession often feels like losing a part of themselves or their identity. It appears as though owning the possession, rather than using it, is integral to the hoarder's sense of self [34].

The association between identity seeking and compulsive buying/hoarding behaviors would be mediated by high materialistic values endorsement, that is, the belief that material goods are central life goals, the main route to identity, success, and happiness [35]. When materialistic values are important to a person, they lead to identity construction through material goods [36]. A growing body of research [37], however, indicates that a materialistic value endorsement can be negatively associated with well-being [38] and positively with ill-being, such as depressive symptoms [39] and unhappiness [40]. Well-being is particularly low for individuals who desire material possessions because they mistakenly believe that they will make them happier and move them closer to their ideal identity [14]. Also in hoarding individuals, saving possessions may be an attempt to regulate both anxious and depressive feelings related to identity issues [18], [33]. Finally, both materialistic value endorsement and depression have been shown to be positively correlated with compulsive buying [41] and depression has been associated with compulsive hoarding [42].

Several pieces of the aforementioned theory were tested separately; however, no study so far has tested the complete model. Therefore, the aims of the present study were to investigate the association between identity confusion and compulsive buying (offline/online) and hoarding in a Flemish community sample. Additionally, we examined whether materialistic value endorsement and depressive mood mediated the association between identity confusion and compulsive buying/hoarding. Finally, we tested whether the same model held for male and female participants given that the relationship between gender and compulsive buying/hoarding is not clear yet.