Materialism as the Mediator of the Association between Subjective Well-being and Impulsive Buying Tendency

Abstract

The findings of the research are consistent and demonstrating the negative relationship between materialism and well-being. The literature also suggests that materialism is one of the main predictors of the impulse buying. It should also be noted that though the relationship of materialism and subjective well-being has been extensively explored, the ambiguity with respect to the directionality of the relationship still prevails in the literature. Subjective well-being recently becomes the subject of interest of scientists from different fields. However, the relationship of well-being with consumer buying behavior received scarce attention. In particular the effect of happiness (well-being) on consumers’ tendency toward impulsive buying behavior, except of some attempts, has been nearly left unaddressed. This study attempts to explain the underlying mechanism of the relationship of subjective well-being and inclination toward impulsive buying behavior. We hypothesize that subjective well-being affects propensity toward impulse buying indirectly through the presence of the materialism. Lower levels of well-being increase materialism that in turn leads to higher levels of impulsive buying tendency. The results of the survey by applying the path analysis (regression based mediation) support the assumption of the indirect well-being-impulsive buying tendency link, mediated by the level of materialism.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.27.5.13830