Psychometric Validation and Prevalence of Compulsive Buying Behavior in an Emerging Economy

Abstract

Prevalence of compulsive buying varies to great extent that may be attributed to conceptual, methodological, cultural, sample, unreliable cutoff criteria and demographic differences in scales that measure this harmful behavior. This study aims to validate psychometric properties of two compulsive buying scales; The Clinical Screener [TCS] and Compulsive Buying Index [CBI] and develops a universal consumer classification criterion. We collected data from systematically selected 2820 shopping mall consumers and 895 university students. We used exploratory factor analysis for identifying new factor structures and confirmatory factor analysis for validating factor structures. TCS yielded two dimensions; shopping anxiety with five items and CBI proved to be a four items unidimensional measure. Both scales exhibited satisfactory reliability and validity and correlated with their antecedents in theoretically predicted directions. About 13 to 14 % of shopping mall consumers and 7 to 8 % university students were classified as compulsive buyers with Revised-TCS and Revised-CBI respectively. Compulsive buying scales provide a better preview of the phenomenon when their theoretical, methodological and cultural differences are adjusted. This study measured prevalence of compulsive buying with a new comprehensive classification continuum that categorizes consumers with respect to their level of compulsiveness. Revised scales and classification scheme will help psychologist, financial councilors and other practitioners to identify affected consumers on multiple levels. Study was limited to fashion clothing consumption in shopping mall consumers and university students.