Description
This study examines the relationship between Big Five personality traits with shopping motivation
variables consisting of compulsive and impulsive buying, hedonic and utilitarian shopping values. Two
hundred forty seven college students were recruited to participate in this research. Bivariate correlation
demonstrates an overlap between personality traits; consequently, canonical correlation was performed to
prevent this phenomenon. The results of multiple regression analysis suggested conscientiousness,
neuroticism and openness as predictors of compulsive buying, impulsive buying and utilitarian shopping
values. In addition, the results showed significant differences between males and females on
conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, compulsive buying and hedonic shopping value. Besides, using
hierarchical regression analysis, we examined sex as moderator between Big Five personality traits and
shopping variables, but we didn’t find sufficient evidence to prove it.
2214-4625/$ – see front matter © 2014 Holy Spirit University of Kaslik. Hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aebj.2014.10.001
ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ aebj
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +98-9143898826; fax: +98-4432334269
E-mail address: [email protected]
Peer review under responsibility of Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.
Conference Title
Personality Traits as Predictors of Shopping Motivations and Behaviors: A
Canonical Correlation Analysis
Ali Gohary *
a
, Kambiz Heidarzadeh Hanzaee
b,
*
a
Department of Business Administration, Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran
b
Department of Business Management, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
A R T I C L E I N F O
Article history:
Received 14 February 2014
Received in revised form 22 September
2014
Accepted 24 September 2014
Keywords:
Big Five Personality
Hedonic values
Utilitarian values
Compulsive buying
Impulsive buying
A B S T R A C T
This study examines the relationship between Big Five personality traits with shopping motivation
variables consisting of compulsive and impulsive buying, hedonic and utilitarian shopping values. Two
hundred forty seven college students were recruited to participate in this research. Bivariate correlation
demonstrates an overlap between personality traits; consequently, canonical correlation was performed to
prevent this phenomenon. The results of multiple regression analysis suggested conscientiousness,
neuroticism and openness as predictors of compulsive buying, impulsive buying and utilitarian shopping
values. In addition, the results showed significant differences between males and females on
conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, compulsive buying and hedonic shopping value. Besides, using
hierarchical regression analysis, we examined sex as moderator between Big Five personality traits and
shopping variables, but we didn’t find sufficient evidence to prove it.
© 2014 Holy Spirit University of Kaslik. Hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Personality traits are one of the main sources of our decisions.
Furthermore, social personality can predict the social behaviour in
particular conditions. In this paper, we don’t want to examine what factors
impacts on personality, but we want to explore the personality effects on
shopping motivations to predict future behaviour of our new or current
customers and illustrate a guideline map to plan and conduct our strategic
programs. A Study on the impact of personality on shopping section will
modify our approach to the business; what goods and services should we
produce? What is the customer’s response to specific social stimuli that
have impact on personality and what proper reaction should we do?
Which personality trait has outstanding role in the society so that we will
provide suitable goods and services to be alive in this emerging market?
Are men and women same in shopping procedure? And when do they
notice hedonistic or utilitarian aspects of shopping? In other words,
individuals have different types of personality traits which are bold within
their personality and make them distinctive in behaviour, habits,
motivations and responses to a stimulus. Individual differences in
personality come from two sources: environmental sources which are
early experiential calibrated, enduring situational evocation, strategic
specialization, adaptive self-assessment of inheritable qualities and
ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174 167
heritable sources, which are temporal or spatial variations in selection
pressures, negative frequency-dependent selection and mutation–selection
balance (Buss, 2008). For several centuries, psychologists tried to
determine the dimensions and characteristics of personality. These efforts
had continued until they increasingly agreed that five supertraits might
adequately describe the structure of personality (Maltby, Day, &
Macaskill, 2010). Costa and McCrae (1985, 1992a, 1992b, 1995)
discussed five major factors, which are influential in forming personality.
They called these traits as Big Five Model of Personality and developed a
measure to assess them that is called NEO Personality Inventory. Five
dimensions of Big Five Factors are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness
(to experience), Conscientiousness, Agreeableness (Digman, 2002). These
personality factors were conceived by researchers to pay much more
attention to relations between personality and consumer behaviour.
Although personality research (“personology”) has long been a fringe
player in the study of consumer behaviour, little research has directly been
devoted to personality issues, and if consumer personality has ever been
investigated, it tended to be from the narrow perspective of developing yet
another individual difference measure in an already crowded field of
personality scales or considering the moderating effects of a given trait on
some relationship of interest (Baumgartner, 2002). But recently, many
researchers discussed the topic of personality and consumer behaviour
(Verplanken & Herabadi, 2001; Wang & Yang, 2008).
1.1. The importance of investigating shopping behaviour in Iran
In this study, we examine personality and shopping variables among a
sample that was chosen from Iranian college students. The main reason
that we chose Iran was the rapid economic and social changes in the last
years that have direct impact on society’s social behaviour; for example,
based on IMF (International Monetary Fund), Iran’s GDP was increased
and wealth dissemination index got a better rate, the Gini ratio improved
and women contribution rate ascended rapidly. These factors caused to
raise a new category of mid-income families with higher education,
different needs, and unfamiliar with urban living challenges might affect
in their personality. In addition, Iran’s population increased very fast from
1979 to 1990. The birth rate reached over 3% per year. Total population
goes higher from 35 million up to more than 65 million. In this era, a new
Iranian Generation Y was introduced regarding those who prefer to live in
urban regions and immigrated therefore from rural to urban regions in the
last years for better job opportunities and educational purposes. These
factors drove people to create their new identity throughout consumption.
On the other side, by increasing oil price which is Iran’s major income
source, demand for consuming (luxury) goods especially imported goods
increased, so that imports set a record and go over 58 billion dollars in
2011. By spread of materialism in Iran in these years (Teimourpour &
Hanzaee, 2014), social shopping behaviour and social personality were
impressive. In this context, most of international foreign companies such
as Apple, HP, Hyundai, L'Oréal, Porsche, Knor, Procter & Gamble, and
Siemens started to export their goods and services to Iran and open a
representation without paying attention to sanctions. Others like Nestle,
Unilever, Samsung, LG, Volvo directly manufactured their product in
Iran. Meanwhile, the lack of enough researches related to shopping and
psychology in this market makes of this research a necessary study for
awareness-raising Iranian shopping behaviour.
1.2. Literature Review and Hypotheses
Research suggests that the shopping experience provides consumers
with a combination of utilitarian and hedonic shopping value (Carpenter
& Moore, 2009; Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994), impulsive and
compulsive buying. Considering five major personal traits that we wanted
to test which ones drove shopping motivations, a concise literature review
of this factor has been described hereunder. At first, we explained four
major shopping variables and then, personality traits will be provided to
explore theoretical linkage among personality and shopping variables.
Impulsive Buying: Impulse buying generates over $4 billion in annual
sales volume in the United States. With the growth of e-commerce and
television shopping channels, consumers have easy access to impulse
purchasing opportunities, but little is known about this sudden,
compelling, hedonically complex purchasing behavior in non-Western
cultures (Kacen & Lee, 2002). Impulsive buying has been defined as the
spontaneous or sudden desire to buy something, and when compared to
more contemplative approaches to decision-making, it considered
emotional, reactive, and “prone to occur with diminished regard” for the
consequences (Rook, 1987). Rook (1987) also stated: “Impulse buying
occurs when a consumer experiences a sudden, often powerful and
persistent urge to buy something immediately. The impulse to buy is
hedonically complex and may stimulate emotional conflict. Also, impulse
buying is prone to occur with diminished regard for its consequences”.
Recent research on impulse buying behavior indicated that individual
consumers did not view their specific purchases as wrong and indeed
retrospectively reported a favorable evaluation of their behavior
(Hausman, 2000).
Compulsive Buying: Faber and O'Guinn (1988) defined compulsive
consumers as "people who are impulsively driven to consume, cannot
control this behavior, and seem to buy in order to escape from other
problems" (Mowen & Spears, 1999). DeSarbo and Edwards (1996)
concluded that compulsive consumption was related to some of
psychological traits such as "dependence, denial, depression, lack of
impulsive control, low self-esteem, approval seeking, anxiety, escape
coping tendencies, general compulsiveness, materialism (envy), isolation,
excitement seeking, and perfectionism". Most research and scholars
consider that excessive buying, defined as consumer spends more than
he/she can afford or beyond his/her needs, is responsible for this situation.
The results of this painful issue for individuals, families, societies as well
as countries and business environment are all unfavourable. For this
reason, this behaviour has been of theoretical and practical interest to
psychologists, psychiatrists, economists, sociologists and marketing
scholars and practitioners (Eren, Eroglu, & Hacioglu, 2012). That is why,
authors discuss compulsive buying in terms of personality traits,
demographic variables, family structure and the patterns that classify
buyers as compulsive and non- compulsive (Faber & O'Guinn,
1992;Faber, O'Guinn, & Krych, 1987;Faber & O'Guinn, 1989).
Hedonic Shopping Value: Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) defined
hedonic consumption as “those facets of consumer behavior that relate to
the multisensory, fantasy and emotive aspects of one’s experience with
products.” Basically this values are unstructured, mentally, affective and
experience-based (Kim & Han, 2011) stimuli driven, pleasant and fun
(Nguyen, Nguyen, & Barrett, 2007). People with higher hedonic values
cannot be satisfied with utilitarian or functional aspects of buying
behaviors but enjoyable and pleasurable aspects of them and they regard
emotional and psychological values of shopping experience. Hedonic
values are assumed to be associated with gratification through fun,
fantasy, playfulness and enjoyment (Eren, Eroglu, & Hacioglu, 2012).
Hedonic value derived from the shopping experience reflects the
emotional or psychological worth of the purchase. Sources of hedonic
168 ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174
value could include the joy and/or the excitement of shopping, or the
escape from everyday activities that is provided by the experience
(Carpenter & Moore, 2009).
Utilitarian shopping values: The utilitarian perspective is based on the
assumption that consumers are rational problem-solvers. As a result, the
utilitarian perspective stresses functional and product-centric thinking, and
the research has focused on consumer decision processes. Consumption is
understood as a mean to accomplish some predefined end (Rintamäki,
Kanto, Kuusela, & Spence, 2006). Consumers perceive utilitarian value
by acquiring the product that necessitated the shopping trip while
simultaneously perceiving hedonic value associated with the enjoyment of
the shopping experience itself. Utilitarian value reflects shopping with a
work mentality (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982). Consumers seek
utilitarian value in a task-oriented, rational manner (Carpenter & Moore,
2009). Utilitarian consumer behavior has been described as ergic, task-
related, and rational (Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994).
We characterized Extraversion as the dimension underlying a broad
group of traits, including sociability, activity, and the tendency to
experience positive emotions such as joy and pleasure (Costa, Jr &
McCrae, 1992). Introversion and social isolation are opposite of
extraversion, which is one of the Big Five Factors (Mowen & Spears,
1999). In a research about shopping experiences, Guido et al. (2007)
stated that when individuals were introverted, their shopping behaviour
tended to be utilitarian; whereas, when the same enduring trait of
personality was directed towards extroversion, their shopping behaviour
tended to be hedonic. In addition, Matzler et al. (2006) found that
extraversion was positively related to the hedonistic value of the products.
Therefore, it sought to investigate this match-up hypothesis as well.
E
u1
: There is an indirect relationship between extraversion and
impulsive buying.
E
u2
: There is a direct relationship between extraversion and
compulsive buying.
E
u3
: There is a direct relationship between extraversion and Hedonic
shopping values.
E
u4
: There is an indirect relationship between extraversion and
Utilitarian shopping values.
High Openness (to experience) individuals are imaginative and
sensitive to art and beauty and have a rich and complex emotional life;
they are intellectually curious, behaviourally flexible, and non-dogmatic
in their attitudes and values (Costa, Jr & McCrae, 1992). They are not
conventional in their ideas, values, and beliefs. Low open to experience
people are conventional and present narrow interests (Lakhal, Frenette,
Sévigny, & Khechine, 2012). Matzler et al. (2006) concluded that the
higher open individuals tended to be curious about both inner and outer
worlds, to have experientially richer lives, and to experience both negative
and positive emotions more keenly than closed individuals. It can be
assumed that they perceive and experience hedonic values of products
stronger than individuals who score low on openness. Some researches
confirmed the relationship between openness and intelligence (DeYoung,
Peterson, & Higgins, 2005; Zurawicki, 2010). It attempts to determine the
biological conditioning of intelligence can prove important to identify the
problem-solving skills and, hence, the decision making patterns
(Zurawicki, 2010) that have a crucial role in predicting shopping
behaviours and motivations. It is noticeable that Voss et al. (2003) stated
problem solving as a subcategory of utilitarian values. Then,
E
b1
: There is a direct relationship between openness and impulsive
buying.
E
b2
: There is a direct relationship between openness and compulsive
buying.
E
b3
: There is a direct relationship between openness and Hedonic
shopping values.
E
b4
: There is an indirect relationship between openness and Utilitarian
shopping values.
Neuroticism represents the individual's tendency to experience
psychological distress, and high standing on neurotic is a feature of most
psychiatric conditions (Costa, Jr & McCrae, 1992). In relation to
Neuroticism, people high on N tend to be emotionally labile and
frequently complain of worry and anxiety as well as of bodily aches (e.g.,
headaches, stomach difficulties, dizzy spells), they are hypochondriac,
insecure, and inadequate (Pervin, 2006). The opposite of neuroticism is
emotional stability (Goldberg, 1990). Prior researches reported the
relationship between compulsive buying and neuroticism. Johnson and
Attmann (2009) found a significant relationship between compulsive
buying and neuroticism. However, according to Mowen et al. (1999)
individuals who got a high score on neuroticism were compulsive buyers.
In addition, d'Astous et al. (1990) found a negative relationship between
self-esteem and compulsive buying. It is noticeable Costa, Jr. & McCrae
(1995) concluded that by increasing the level of neuroticism, individuals
tending to impulsiveness, depression, anxiety and vulnerability would be
more intensive. Additionally, Mick (1996) found a positive relationship
between impulsive buying and neuroticism. Chetthamrongchai and Davies
(2000) suggested about individuals who scored relatively high on present
orientation which was indicating that they were more concerned with that
was happening at the moment than in the past or in the future. In addition
Roberts and Pirog (2004) found a positive link between extrinsic goals,
which were associated with low self-esteem, and compulsive buying. So,
E
3u
: There is a direct relationship between neuroticism and impulsive
buying.
E
3b
: There is a direct relationship between neuroticism and
compulsive buying.
E
3c
: There is an indirect relationship between extraversion and
Hedonic shopping values.
E
SJ
: There is a direct relationship between neuroticism and Utilitarian
shopping values.
Agreeableness is an expression of the need for harmonious relations,
which implies the rejection of the domineering approach (Zurawicki,
2010). High agreeable individuals are trusting, sympathetic, cooperative,
good natured, straightforward, forgiving, and gullible; low-An individual
are cynical, callous, and antagonistic (Costa, Jr & McCrae, 1992; Pervin,
2006). These people with higher scores on agreeableness tend to trust
rather than to be suspicious of other people. In other words, individuals
with a lower degree of agreeableness doubt things that they do not
personally know (Wang & Yang, 2008). Ho et al. (2004) suggested that
agreeable people would not experience as strong a negative emotional
response, as less agreeable people, and these people are better at
emotional self-regulation, including the regulation of anger and other
negative emotions. Duijsens and Diekstra (1996) reported a negative
relationship between agreeableness and compulsive and impulsive
behavior, but Balabanis (2002) and Wang et al. (2008) didn’t find
sufficient evidence to support this claim. Guido et al. (2006) suggested
agreeable people would have a strong linkage with hedonic shopping
values. Then we hypothesis:
E
4u
: There is an indirect relationship between agreeableness and
impulsive buying.
E
4b
: There is an indirect relationship between agreeableness and
compulsive buying.
E
4c
: There is a direct relationship between agreeableness and Hedonic
ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174 169
shopping values.
E
4J
: There is a direct relationship between agreeableness and
Utilitarian shopping values.
Conscientiousness is a dimension that contrasts scrupulous, well-
organized, and diligent people with lax, disorganized, and lackadaisical
individuals (Costa, Jr & McCrae, 1992). These people are reliable, self-
disciplined, punctual, neat, ambitious, persevering, deliberating,
competent, dutiful (Pervin, 2006; Maltby et al., 2010), who display
planned rather than spontaneous behavior and at the extreme, like the
individuals tending to be perfectionists (Zurawicki, 2010).
Conscientiousness people are able to control impulse emotions and delay
gratification (Joshanloo, Rastegar, & Bakhshi, 2012). This ability drives
them to not be an impulse shopper as the reports from Gustavsson et al.
(2003) showed a negative relationship between impulsive behavior and
conscientiousness. Mowen et al. (1999) in a research found a significant
negative relationship between compulsive buying and conscientiousness
and suggested that individuals who had difficulty controling their buying
might also reveal a lack of organization, precision, and efficiency in their
daily lives. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
E
5u
: There is a direct relationship between Conscientiousness and
impulsive buying.
E
5b
: There is a direct relationship between Conscientiousness and
compulsive buying.
E
5c
: There is a direct relationship between Conscientiousness and
Hedonic shopping values.
E
SJ
: There is a direct relationship between Conscientiousness and
Utilitarian shopping values.
Although we considered shopping as an activity to respond our daily
needs, but nowadays it has an importance role in spending time and
answers the different kinds of social pressures (which affect the person’s
behaviors) and lifestyle activity. Considering the different aspects of each
personality trait, we want to answer the question that “Do personality
traits predict shopping motivations?"
2. Method
2.1. Participants and procedure
To determine sample size, we used Statistical Power Analysis method
which tried to make a balance between ? (Error type I) and ? (Error type
II) to optimize hypothesis test and make the results more precious (Davey
& Savla, 2010). So, we used GPower Ver 3.1 to calculate sample size
(Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009). The results of acquired samples
showed the statistical power is 0.97, which was an acceptable amount to
verify sampling procedure because statistical powers more than 0.6 are
acceptable (Dattalo, 2008). Therefore, a self-report questionnaire was
distributed randomly among 247 college students at Qazvin and Urmia in
Iran. This sample consists of 149 male (60.3%) and 98 female (37.3%)
students. Respondents were recruited from a variety of majors. A
hundred-eighty-nine respondents were single and fifty-eight respondents
were married. Average age of respondents was 25.53 years old (SD =
5.908) which 153 (63.22%) respondents were between 16- 25 years old,
68 (28.09%) respondents were 26-35 and 21 (8.69%) were 35-33 years
old. Trained data collectors distributed questionnaires in the classrooms.
They described the measures and answered the questions. Participants
were convinced about confidentially of data, and they participated in the
research voluntary.
2.2 Measures
The 74-item questionnaires were collected from samples. All the items
of scales were translated to Persian by using the back-translation method.
Due to the variety of variables of this research, we used different scales in
our questionnaire. A shorten version of the NEO PI consisted of 44-items
which was developed and obtained by John et al. (1991) and who was
employed to measure Big Five personality traits in 2008. To assess
Compulsive Buying, we used a scale which was developed by d'Astous et
al. (1990). To measure Impulsive Buying, we employed a 9-item scale
which was developed by Rook et al. (1995) in this research. Furthermore,
we employed scales to assess Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Values
that were developed by Babin et al. (1994) consisting of 11-items for
hedonic shopping values and 4-items for utilitarian shopping values.
3. Results
To assess the relationship between personality traits and shopping
motivations, we analysed our data using by SPSS version 21. Preliminary
analyses calculated bivariate correlations, means, standard deviations, and
Cronbach’s alpha are shown in Table 1. The results of bivariate analysis
indicated that some of the relationships were supported recent studies and
findings, but some of them were not significant.
Table 1- Intercorrelations between the scales and descriptive statistics among this study.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1- Extraversion
1
2- Agreeableness
.313
**
1
3- Conscientiousness
.320
**
.442
**
1
4- Neuroticism
-.384
**
-.447
**
-.372
**
1
5- Openness
.372
**
.188
**
.297
**
-.279
**
1
6- Compulsive
-.012 -.055 -.164
**
.124 .021 1
7- Impulsive
-.027 -.042 -.132
*
.136
*
-.063 .720
**
1
8- Hedonic
.108 -.033 .015 .102 .017 .640
**
.516
**
1
10- Utilitarian
.145
*
.122 .266
**
-.161
*
.212
**
-.018 -.113 .256
**
1
Mean
3.22 3.71 3.47 2.90 3.57 2.78 2.39 3.06 3.50
Alpha .64 .63 .74 .71 .73 .73 .82 .87 .34
170 ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174
* P
This study examines the relationship between Big Five personality traits with shopping motivation
variables consisting of compulsive and impulsive buying, hedonic and utilitarian shopping values. Two
hundred forty seven college students were recruited to participate in this research. Bivariate correlation
demonstrates an overlap between personality traits; consequently, canonical correlation was performed to
prevent this phenomenon. The results of multiple regression analysis suggested conscientiousness,
neuroticism and openness as predictors of compulsive buying, impulsive buying and utilitarian shopping
values. In addition, the results showed significant differences between males and females on
conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, compulsive buying and hedonic shopping value. Besides, using
hierarchical regression analysis, we examined sex as moderator between Big Five personality traits and
shopping variables, but we didn’t find sufficient evidence to prove it.
2214-4625/$ – see front matter © 2014 Holy Spirit University of Kaslik. Hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aebj.2014.10.001
ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ aebj
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +98-9143898826; fax: +98-4432334269
E-mail address: [email protected]
Peer review under responsibility of Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.
Conference Title
Personality Traits as Predictors of Shopping Motivations and Behaviors: A
Canonical Correlation Analysis
Ali Gohary *
a
, Kambiz Heidarzadeh Hanzaee
b,
*
a
Department of Business Administration, Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran
b
Department of Business Management, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
A R T I C L E I N F O
Article history:
Received 14 February 2014
Received in revised form 22 September
2014
Accepted 24 September 2014
Keywords:
Big Five Personality
Hedonic values
Utilitarian values
Compulsive buying
Impulsive buying
A B S T R A C T
This study examines the relationship between Big Five personality traits with shopping motivation
variables consisting of compulsive and impulsive buying, hedonic and utilitarian shopping values. Two
hundred forty seven college students were recruited to participate in this research. Bivariate correlation
demonstrates an overlap between personality traits; consequently, canonical correlation was performed to
prevent this phenomenon. The results of multiple regression analysis suggested conscientiousness,
neuroticism and openness as predictors of compulsive buying, impulsive buying and utilitarian shopping
values. In addition, the results showed significant differences between males and females on
conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, compulsive buying and hedonic shopping value. Besides, using
hierarchical regression analysis, we examined sex as moderator between Big Five personality traits and
shopping variables, but we didn’t find sufficient evidence to prove it.
© 2014 Holy Spirit University of Kaslik. Hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Personality traits are one of the main sources of our decisions.
Furthermore, social personality can predict the social behaviour in
particular conditions. In this paper, we don’t want to examine what factors
impacts on personality, but we want to explore the personality effects on
shopping motivations to predict future behaviour of our new or current
customers and illustrate a guideline map to plan and conduct our strategic
programs. A Study on the impact of personality on shopping section will
modify our approach to the business; what goods and services should we
produce? What is the customer’s response to specific social stimuli that
have impact on personality and what proper reaction should we do?
Which personality trait has outstanding role in the society so that we will
provide suitable goods and services to be alive in this emerging market?
Are men and women same in shopping procedure? And when do they
notice hedonistic or utilitarian aspects of shopping? In other words,
individuals have different types of personality traits which are bold within
their personality and make them distinctive in behaviour, habits,
motivations and responses to a stimulus. Individual differences in
personality come from two sources: environmental sources which are
early experiential calibrated, enduring situational evocation, strategic
specialization, adaptive self-assessment of inheritable qualities and
ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174 167
heritable sources, which are temporal or spatial variations in selection
pressures, negative frequency-dependent selection and mutation–selection
balance (Buss, 2008). For several centuries, psychologists tried to
determine the dimensions and characteristics of personality. These efforts
had continued until they increasingly agreed that five supertraits might
adequately describe the structure of personality (Maltby, Day, &
Macaskill, 2010). Costa and McCrae (1985, 1992a, 1992b, 1995)
discussed five major factors, which are influential in forming personality.
They called these traits as Big Five Model of Personality and developed a
measure to assess them that is called NEO Personality Inventory. Five
dimensions of Big Five Factors are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness
(to experience), Conscientiousness, Agreeableness (Digman, 2002). These
personality factors were conceived by researchers to pay much more
attention to relations between personality and consumer behaviour.
Although personality research (“personology”) has long been a fringe
player in the study of consumer behaviour, little research has directly been
devoted to personality issues, and if consumer personality has ever been
investigated, it tended to be from the narrow perspective of developing yet
another individual difference measure in an already crowded field of
personality scales or considering the moderating effects of a given trait on
some relationship of interest (Baumgartner, 2002). But recently, many
researchers discussed the topic of personality and consumer behaviour
(Verplanken & Herabadi, 2001; Wang & Yang, 2008).
1.1. The importance of investigating shopping behaviour in Iran
In this study, we examine personality and shopping variables among a
sample that was chosen from Iranian college students. The main reason
that we chose Iran was the rapid economic and social changes in the last
years that have direct impact on society’s social behaviour; for example,
based on IMF (International Monetary Fund), Iran’s GDP was increased
and wealth dissemination index got a better rate, the Gini ratio improved
and women contribution rate ascended rapidly. These factors caused to
raise a new category of mid-income families with higher education,
different needs, and unfamiliar with urban living challenges might affect
in their personality. In addition, Iran’s population increased very fast from
1979 to 1990. The birth rate reached over 3% per year. Total population
goes higher from 35 million up to more than 65 million. In this era, a new
Iranian Generation Y was introduced regarding those who prefer to live in
urban regions and immigrated therefore from rural to urban regions in the
last years for better job opportunities and educational purposes. These
factors drove people to create their new identity throughout consumption.
On the other side, by increasing oil price which is Iran’s major income
source, demand for consuming (luxury) goods especially imported goods
increased, so that imports set a record and go over 58 billion dollars in
2011. By spread of materialism in Iran in these years (Teimourpour &
Hanzaee, 2014), social shopping behaviour and social personality were
impressive. In this context, most of international foreign companies such
as Apple, HP, Hyundai, L'Oréal, Porsche, Knor, Procter & Gamble, and
Siemens started to export their goods and services to Iran and open a
representation without paying attention to sanctions. Others like Nestle,
Unilever, Samsung, LG, Volvo directly manufactured their product in
Iran. Meanwhile, the lack of enough researches related to shopping and
psychology in this market makes of this research a necessary study for
awareness-raising Iranian shopping behaviour.
1.2. Literature Review and Hypotheses
Research suggests that the shopping experience provides consumers
with a combination of utilitarian and hedonic shopping value (Carpenter
& Moore, 2009; Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994), impulsive and
compulsive buying. Considering five major personal traits that we wanted
to test which ones drove shopping motivations, a concise literature review
of this factor has been described hereunder. At first, we explained four
major shopping variables and then, personality traits will be provided to
explore theoretical linkage among personality and shopping variables.
Impulsive Buying: Impulse buying generates over $4 billion in annual
sales volume in the United States. With the growth of e-commerce and
television shopping channels, consumers have easy access to impulse
purchasing opportunities, but little is known about this sudden,
compelling, hedonically complex purchasing behavior in non-Western
cultures (Kacen & Lee, 2002). Impulsive buying has been defined as the
spontaneous or sudden desire to buy something, and when compared to
more contemplative approaches to decision-making, it considered
emotional, reactive, and “prone to occur with diminished regard” for the
consequences (Rook, 1987). Rook (1987) also stated: “Impulse buying
occurs when a consumer experiences a sudden, often powerful and
persistent urge to buy something immediately. The impulse to buy is
hedonically complex and may stimulate emotional conflict. Also, impulse
buying is prone to occur with diminished regard for its consequences”.
Recent research on impulse buying behavior indicated that individual
consumers did not view their specific purchases as wrong and indeed
retrospectively reported a favorable evaluation of their behavior
(Hausman, 2000).
Compulsive Buying: Faber and O'Guinn (1988) defined compulsive
consumers as "people who are impulsively driven to consume, cannot
control this behavior, and seem to buy in order to escape from other
problems" (Mowen & Spears, 1999). DeSarbo and Edwards (1996)
concluded that compulsive consumption was related to some of
psychological traits such as "dependence, denial, depression, lack of
impulsive control, low self-esteem, approval seeking, anxiety, escape
coping tendencies, general compulsiveness, materialism (envy), isolation,
excitement seeking, and perfectionism". Most research and scholars
consider that excessive buying, defined as consumer spends more than
he/she can afford or beyond his/her needs, is responsible for this situation.
The results of this painful issue for individuals, families, societies as well
as countries and business environment are all unfavourable. For this
reason, this behaviour has been of theoretical and practical interest to
psychologists, psychiatrists, economists, sociologists and marketing
scholars and practitioners (Eren, Eroglu, & Hacioglu, 2012). That is why,
authors discuss compulsive buying in terms of personality traits,
demographic variables, family structure and the patterns that classify
buyers as compulsive and non- compulsive (Faber & O'Guinn,
1992;Faber, O'Guinn, & Krych, 1987;Faber & O'Guinn, 1989).
Hedonic Shopping Value: Hirschman and Holbrook (1982) defined
hedonic consumption as “those facets of consumer behavior that relate to
the multisensory, fantasy and emotive aspects of one’s experience with
products.” Basically this values are unstructured, mentally, affective and
experience-based (Kim & Han, 2011) stimuli driven, pleasant and fun
(Nguyen, Nguyen, & Barrett, 2007). People with higher hedonic values
cannot be satisfied with utilitarian or functional aspects of buying
behaviors but enjoyable and pleasurable aspects of them and they regard
emotional and psychological values of shopping experience. Hedonic
values are assumed to be associated with gratification through fun,
fantasy, playfulness and enjoyment (Eren, Eroglu, & Hacioglu, 2012).
Hedonic value derived from the shopping experience reflects the
emotional or psychological worth of the purchase. Sources of hedonic
168 ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174
value could include the joy and/or the excitement of shopping, or the
escape from everyday activities that is provided by the experience
(Carpenter & Moore, 2009).
Utilitarian shopping values: The utilitarian perspective is based on the
assumption that consumers are rational problem-solvers. As a result, the
utilitarian perspective stresses functional and product-centric thinking, and
the research has focused on consumer decision processes. Consumption is
understood as a mean to accomplish some predefined end (Rintamäki,
Kanto, Kuusela, & Spence, 2006). Consumers perceive utilitarian value
by acquiring the product that necessitated the shopping trip while
simultaneously perceiving hedonic value associated with the enjoyment of
the shopping experience itself. Utilitarian value reflects shopping with a
work mentality (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982). Consumers seek
utilitarian value in a task-oriented, rational manner (Carpenter & Moore,
2009). Utilitarian consumer behavior has been described as ergic, task-
related, and rational (Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994).
We characterized Extraversion as the dimension underlying a broad
group of traits, including sociability, activity, and the tendency to
experience positive emotions such as joy and pleasure (Costa, Jr &
McCrae, 1992). Introversion and social isolation are opposite of
extraversion, which is one of the Big Five Factors (Mowen & Spears,
1999). In a research about shopping experiences, Guido et al. (2007)
stated that when individuals were introverted, their shopping behaviour
tended to be utilitarian; whereas, when the same enduring trait of
personality was directed towards extroversion, their shopping behaviour
tended to be hedonic. In addition, Matzler et al. (2006) found that
extraversion was positively related to the hedonistic value of the products.
Therefore, it sought to investigate this match-up hypothesis as well.
E
u1
: There is an indirect relationship between extraversion and
impulsive buying.
E
u2
: There is a direct relationship between extraversion and
compulsive buying.
E
u3
: There is a direct relationship between extraversion and Hedonic
shopping values.
E
u4
: There is an indirect relationship between extraversion and
Utilitarian shopping values.
High Openness (to experience) individuals are imaginative and
sensitive to art and beauty and have a rich and complex emotional life;
they are intellectually curious, behaviourally flexible, and non-dogmatic
in their attitudes and values (Costa, Jr & McCrae, 1992). They are not
conventional in their ideas, values, and beliefs. Low open to experience
people are conventional and present narrow interests (Lakhal, Frenette,
Sévigny, & Khechine, 2012). Matzler et al. (2006) concluded that the
higher open individuals tended to be curious about both inner and outer
worlds, to have experientially richer lives, and to experience both negative
and positive emotions more keenly than closed individuals. It can be
assumed that they perceive and experience hedonic values of products
stronger than individuals who score low on openness. Some researches
confirmed the relationship between openness and intelligence (DeYoung,
Peterson, & Higgins, 2005; Zurawicki, 2010). It attempts to determine the
biological conditioning of intelligence can prove important to identify the
problem-solving skills and, hence, the decision making patterns
(Zurawicki, 2010) that have a crucial role in predicting shopping
behaviours and motivations. It is noticeable that Voss et al. (2003) stated
problem solving as a subcategory of utilitarian values. Then,
E
b1
: There is a direct relationship between openness and impulsive
buying.
E
b2
: There is a direct relationship between openness and compulsive
buying.
E
b3
: There is a direct relationship between openness and Hedonic
shopping values.
E
b4
: There is an indirect relationship between openness and Utilitarian
shopping values.
Neuroticism represents the individual's tendency to experience
psychological distress, and high standing on neurotic is a feature of most
psychiatric conditions (Costa, Jr & McCrae, 1992). In relation to
Neuroticism, people high on N tend to be emotionally labile and
frequently complain of worry and anxiety as well as of bodily aches (e.g.,
headaches, stomach difficulties, dizzy spells), they are hypochondriac,
insecure, and inadequate (Pervin, 2006). The opposite of neuroticism is
emotional stability (Goldberg, 1990). Prior researches reported the
relationship between compulsive buying and neuroticism. Johnson and
Attmann (2009) found a significant relationship between compulsive
buying and neuroticism. However, according to Mowen et al. (1999)
individuals who got a high score on neuroticism were compulsive buyers.
In addition, d'Astous et al. (1990) found a negative relationship between
self-esteem and compulsive buying. It is noticeable Costa, Jr. & McCrae
(1995) concluded that by increasing the level of neuroticism, individuals
tending to impulsiveness, depression, anxiety and vulnerability would be
more intensive. Additionally, Mick (1996) found a positive relationship
between impulsive buying and neuroticism. Chetthamrongchai and Davies
(2000) suggested about individuals who scored relatively high on present
orientation which was indicating that they were more concerned with that
was happening at the moment than in the past or in the future. In addition
Roberts and Pirog (2004) found a positive link between extrinsic goals,
which were associated with low self-esteem, and compulsive buying. So,
E
3u
: There is a direct relationship between neuroticism and impulsive
buying.
E
3b
: There is a direct relationship between neuroticism and
compulsive buying.
E
3c
: There is an indirect relationship between extraversion and
Hedonic shopping values.
E
SJ
: There is a direct relationship between neuroticism and Utilitarian
shopping values.
Agreeableness is an expression of the need for harmonious relations,
which implies the rejection of the domineering approach (Zurawicki,
2010). High agreeable individuals are trusting, sympathetic, cooperative,
good natured, straightforward, forgiving, and gullible; low-An individual
are cynical, callous, and antagonistic (Costa, Jr & McCrae, 1992; Pervin,
2006). These people with higher scores on agreeableness tend to trust
rather than to be suspicious of other people. In other words, individuals
with a lower degree of agreeableness doubt things that they do not
personally know (Wang & Yang, 2008). Ho et al. (2004) suggested that
agreeable people would not experience as strong a negative emotional
response, as less agreeable people, and these people are better at
emotional self-regulation, including the regulation of anger and other
negative emotions. Duijsens and Diekstra (1996) reported a negative
relationship between agreeableness and compulsive and impulsive
behavior, but Balabanis (2002) and Wang et al. (2008) didn’t find
sufficient evidence to support this claim. Guido et al. (2006) suggested
agreeable people would have a strong linkage with hedonic shopping
values. Then we hypothesis:
E
4u
: There is an indirect relationship between agreeableness and
impulsive buying.
E
4b
: There is an indirect relationship between agreeableness and
compulsive buying.
E
4c
: There is a direct relationship between agreeableness and Hedonic
ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174 169
shopping values.
E
4J
: There is a direct relationship between agreeableness and
Utilitarian shopping values.
Conscientiousness is a dimension that contrasts scrupulous, well-
organized, and diligent people with lax, disorganized, and lackadaisical
individuals (Costa, Jr & McCrae, 1992). These people are reliable, self-
disciplined, punctual, neat, ambitious, persevering, deliberating,
competent, dutiful (Pervin, 2006; Maltby et al., 2010), who display
planned rather than spontaneous behavior and at the extreme, like the
individuals tending to be perfectionists (Zurawicki, 2010).
Conscientiousness people are able to control impulse emotions and delay
gratification (Joshanloo, Rastegar, & Bakhshi, 2012). This ability drives
them to not be an impulse shopper as the reports from Gustavsson et al.
(2003) showed a negative relationship between impulsive behavior and
conscientiousness. Mowen et al. (1999) in a research found a significant
negative relationship between compulsive buying and conscientiousness
and suggested that individuals who had difficulty controling their buying
might also reveal a lack of organization, precision, and efficiency in their
daily lives. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
E
5u
: There is a direct relationship between Conscientiousness and
impulsive buying.
E
5b
: There is a direct relationship between Conscientiousness and
compulsive buying.
E
5c
: There is a direct relationship between Conscientiousness and
Hedonic shopping values.
E
SJ
: There is a direct relationship between Conscientiousness and
Utilitarian shopping values.
Although we considered shopping as an activity to respond our daily
needs, but nowadays it has an importance role in spending time and
answers the different kinds of social pressures (which affect the person’s
behaviors) and lifestyle activity. Considering the different aspects of each
personality trait, we want to answer the question that “Do personality
traits predict shopping motivations?"
2. Method
2.1. Participants and procedure
To determine sample size, we used Statistical Power Analysis method
which tried to make a balance between ? (Error type I) and ? (Error type
II) to optimize hypothesis test and make the results more precious (Davey
& Savla, 2010). So, we used GPower Ver 3.1 to calculate sample size
(Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009). The results of acquired samples
showed the statistical power is 0.97, which was an acceptable amount to
verify sampling procedure because statistical powers more than 0.6 are
acceptable (Dattalo, 2008). Therefore, a self-report questionnaire was
distributed randomly among 247 college students at Qazvin and Urmia in
Iran. This sample consists of 149 male (60.3%) and 98 female (37.3%)
students. Respondents were recruited from a variety of majors. A
hundred-eighty-nine respondents were single and fifty-eight respondents
were married. Average age of respondents was 25.53 years old (SD =
5.908) which 153 (63.22%) respondents were between 16- 25 years old,
68 (28.09%) respondents were 26-35 and 21 (8.69%) were 35-33 years
old. Trained data collectors distributed questionnaires in the classrooms.
They described the measures and answered the questions. Participants
were convinced about confidentially of data, and they participated in the
research voluntary.
2.2 Measures
The 74-item questionnaires were collected from samples. All the items
of scales were translated to Persian by using the back-translation method.
Due to the variety of variables of this research, we used different scales in
our questionnaire. A shorten version of the NEO PI consisted of 44-items
which was developed and obtained by John et al. (1991) and who was
employed to measure Big Five personality traits in 2008. To assess
Compulsive Buying, we used a scale which was developed by d'Astous et
al. (1990). To measure Impulsive Buying, we employed a 9-item scale
which was developed by Rook et al. (1995) in this research. Furthermore,
we employed scales to assess Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Values
that were developed by Babin et al. (1994) consisting of 11-items for
hedonic shopping values and 4-items for utilitarian shopping values.
3. Results
To assess the relationship between personality traits and shopping
motivations, we analysed our data using by SPSS version 21. Preliminary
analyses calculated bivariate correlations, means, standard deviations, and
Cronbach’s alpha are shown in Table 1. The results of bivariate analysis
indicated that some of the relationships were supported recent studies and
findings, but some of them were not significant.
Table 1- Intercorrelations between the scales and descriptive statistics among this study.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1- Extraversion
1
2- Agreeableness
.313
**
1
3- Conscientiousness
.320
**
.442
**
1
4- Neuroticism
-.384
**
-.447
**
-.372
**
1
5- Openness
.372
**
.188
**
.297
**
-.279
**
1
6- Compulsive
-.012 -.055 -.164
**
.124 .021 1
7- Impulsive
-.027 -.042 -.132
*
.136
*
-.063 .720
**
1
8- Hedonic
.108 -.033 .015 .102 .017 .640
**
.516
**
1
10- Utilitarian
.145
*
.122 .266
**
-.161
*
.212
**
-.018 -.113 .256
**
1
Mean
3.22 3.71 3.47 2.90 3.57 2.78 2.39 3.06 3.50
Alpha .64 .63 .74 .71 .73 .73 .82 .87 .34
170 ARAB ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS JOURNAL 9 (2014) 166–174
* P