Buyer Behavior: Self-Image Purchases

Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 109±142 www.elsevier.com/locate/joep Self-image ± is it in the bag? A qualitative comparison between ``ordinary ' ' and ``excessive ' ' consumers
Helga Dittmar *, John Drury
Sociology and Social Psychology Subject Group, Arts Building E, University of Sussex, Falmer,
Brighton BNI 9SN, East Sussex, UK
Received 25 July 1998; accepted 10 September 1999

Abstract
An in-depth thematic analysis is presented of 32 interviews, which examined commonsense de®nitions of impulsive and planned buying, characteristics of typical impulse buy episodes, motivations for impulsive buying, issues of self-image and self-presentation, and regret. Ten interviews each were conducted with ``ordinary ' ' men and women consumers, and a further 10 with women classi®ed as ``excessive shoppers ' ' (more commonly referred to as ``compulsive buyers ' '). Two male excessive consumers were also interviewed. Distinctive patterns emerged for each di€erent shopper group. Findings show that impulse buying, regret and other concepts have complex meanings beyond those that can be measured easily in survey research, and that the level of sophistication and re¯exivity about oneÕs shopping behaviour is far greater in excessive shoppers. On the basis of the gender di€erences found, it is proposed that self and shopping are more closely linked for women than for men. Ó 2000 Elsevier Science
B.V. All rights reserved.
PsycINFO classi®cation: 11480
JEL classi®cation: D120; J160

* Corresponding

author. Tel.: [phone]; fax: [phone].
E-mail address: [e-mail] (H. Dittmar).

0167-4870/00/$ - see front matter Ó 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 6 7 - 4 8 7 0 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 3 9 - 2

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H. Dittmar, J. Drury / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 109±142

Keywords: Consumer behavior; Shopping; Compulsive buying; Self-image; Gender; Thematic analysis 1. Introduction

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