Greed, generosity and online compulsive buying: consequences for negative emotions and harmonyin life
研究调查了370名美国消费者，发现贪婪和物质主义价值观会促进在线强迫性购买，而慷慨能缓解其带来的负面情绪和生活和谐损害。
Purpose This study aims to explore the interplay between dispositional greed and value materialism and empirically test how it shapes online compulsive buying tendencies. Additionally, it investigates whether, and if so, how online compulsive buying and generosity have consequences for individuals’ negative emotions (guilt, shame and regret) and harmony in life. This study uses an integrated and multi-theoretical framework that combines the duality between selfishness and prosocial behaviour, self-regulation theory and a combination of bottom-up and top-down theories of subjective well-being to provide a novel perspective on the complex motivations and consequences of online compulsive buying. Design/methodology/approach The results are based on a survey of 370 consumers who were members of Prolific, a consumer panel in the USA. Structural equation modelling using AMOS and SmartPLS are used to test the conceptual model and hypotheses. Findings The survey finds show that dispositional greed and value materialism have significant positive associations with online compulsive buying. In addition, negative emotion is found to be a full mediator of the relationship between compulsive buying and harmony in life. Generosity weakens both the positive effect of compulsive buying on negative emotion and the negative effect of online compulsive buying on harmony in life. The analytical results show, in particular, that general greed, value materialism and generosity account for 36.6% of the variation in online compulsive buying. Research limitations/implications Future studies using this theoretical approach could include other personality traits or personal values. The limitations include the use of self-reporting instruments and a cross-sectional survey from one country. Practical implications Generally, compulsive buying is seen primarily as a negative outcome. Redefining compulsive buying by showing how it can have multifaceted motivations and consequences, may lead to better managerial and consumer policy and therapeutic interventions. For example, enhancing generosity and other prosocial behaviours could be a component of strategies and interventions designed to prevent the mental and financial damage of compulsive buying, potentially improving overall well-being and harmony in life. Originality/value This study proposes a novel integrated (dualistic) perspective and theoretical grounding, highlighting the potential for individuals to concurrently embody aspects of selfishness (represented by greed and value materialism) and prosocial behaviour/otherishness (represented by generosity) in the context of online compulsive buying.