Comorbidity of compulsive buying and brand addiction: An examination of two types of addictive consumption

Mona Mrad,Charles Chi Cui

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.023

Mona Mrad, Charles Chi Cui

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.023

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Abstract

While compulsive buying and brand addiction are both addictive consumption, little is known about how they jointly impact on consumers. This research demonstrates that compulsive buying and brand addiction are distinct phenomena and may co-occur. Data from this research demonstrates that while compulsive buying has negative impacts, brand addiction does not result in debt and has positive impacts on self-esteem and life happiness. Compulsive buying is positively related to brand addiction, and brand addiction positively mediates the relationships between compulsive buying and debt avoidance, self-esteem and life happiness. This research introduces a new perspective on theorizing comorbid addiction of compulsive buying and brand addiction by providing evidence that brand addiction may not be pathological, and compulsive buying's negative effects may be weakened or eliminated in the presence of brand addiction. It opens avenues for further research to create broader and more parsimonious theoretical models for responsive marketing approaches to addictive consumption.

Highlights

To cope with daily stress events and bring positive affect, people often resort to compulsive buying
Understanding how compulsive buying is comorbid with brand addiction and their impacts on consumers' life experience can broaden our knowledge of compulsive buying and brand addiction, and motivate further research to advance theories of addictive consumption
The results demonstrate that compulsive buying has negative impacts on debt avoidance (H1: β = −0.61, p < 0.01), self-esteem (H3: β = −0.39, p < 0.01), while brand addiction has positive impacts on debt avoidance (H2: β = 0.30, p < 0.01), self-esteem (H4: β = 0.43, p < 0.01), and life happiness (H6: β = 0.19, p < 0.01)

Summary

Introduction

To cope with daily stress events and bring positive affect, people often resort to compulsive buying. While early studies suggest that addiction to brands has similar negative consequences as other forms of pathological (dysfunctional) addiction (Fournier & Alvarez, 2013), new research evidence suggests that brand addiction may not lead to negative consequences (Cui, Mrad, & Hogg, 2018; Mrad & Cui, 2017). Both compulsive buying and brand addiction are addictive consumption, marketers and consumer researchers have little reliable information on how the co-occurrence of the two addictions impact on consumers' self-esteem and life happiness. The importance of understanding comorbidity of compulsive buying and other addictive consumption has been recognized in psychiatric literature (e.g., Granero, Fernández-Aranda, Baño, et al, 2016; Koran, Faber, Aboujaoude, Large, & Serpe, 2006; Mestre-Bach et al, 2017) and consumer research

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