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A scale for assessing shopping addiction was developed by Norwegian psychologists. They also found out exactly what character traits push us to make purchases.
Clinical psychologist Cecilie Schou Andreassen of the University of Bergen, Norway, is leading a research project to study shopping addiction. “Modern technologies make shopping more convenient and affordable, which is becoming a problem for people prone to uncontrolled shopping. The influence of social media and aggressive marketing further aggravates the situation. Shopping addiction is more common in women, usually begins in late adolescence or early adulthood, sometimes these unhealthy tendencies soften with age,” says Cecilia Andreassen.
Pass the tests
- What kind of buyer are you?
- What does money mean to you?
- Are you good at giving gifts?
The researchers found that certain personality traits (according to the so-called five-factor personality model, which highlights extraversion, neuroticism, accommodating, conscientiousness and openness to new things) are more common in people suffering from shopping addiction. Other features, on the contrary, prevent the development of such dependence.
“As our research shows, neurotic personalities, as well as extroverts, are at risk. Extroverts often try to make themselves known through shopping, they also try to increase their social status and attractiveness in this way. Neurotic people are insecure individuals, with a tendency to depressive and anxiety disorders, with the help of purchases they try to drown out their internal problems and weaken negative emotions. However, compulsive shopping in itself can lead to emotional problems,” says Cecilia Andreassen. The study showed that the symptoms of this form of addiction in many ways resemble the symptoms of more severe types of addiction – alcohol and drug addiction.
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On the contrary, personality traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to new things often prevent the development of shopping addiction, because people who exhibit these traits either have good self-control, or try to avoid unpleasant situations that uncontrolled shopping can lead to, or have unusual hobbies and consider shopping too banal.
The Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale identifies seven criteria for addiction. Each of them is evaluated on a five-point scale: 0 – completely disagree, 1 – disagree, 2 – disagree, but do not deny, 3 – agree, 4 – completely agree. The criteria are as follows:
- You constantly think about shopping / shopping.
- You go shopping to cheer yourself up.
- You devote a lot of time to shopping to the detriment of your main responsibilities (work, study).
- It seems to you that you need to buy more and more in order to feel the same level of pleasure from this process.
- You already promised yourself that you would stop buying so many things, but you couldn’t keep your promise.
- If something interferes with shopping / shopping, your mood is spoiled.
- You spend so much time and money shopping that it reflects on your well-being.
Research has shown that if a person “agrees” or “strongly agrees” with at least four of the items on this list, they may be suspected of having a shopping addiction.
Подробнее см. С. Andreassen et al. «The Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale: reliability and validity of a brief screening test», Frontiers in Psychology, September 2015.