Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2022, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (3): 657-664.

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The Relationship between Social Exclusion and Impulsive Buying of College Students: The Mediating Role of Celebrity Worship and the Moderating Role of Self-Control

  

  • Received:2021-04-18 Revised:2022-01-05 Online:2022-05-20 Published:2022-05-22
  • Contact: Yan-Gang Nie

社会排斥与大学生冲动性消费行为:名人崇拜的中介及自我控制的调节作用

罗浩诚1,杨秋寒2,陈佳榕2,利振华1,聂衍刚1   

  1. 1. 广州大学
    2. 广州大学教育学院心理学系 & 青少年心理与行为研究中心
  • 通讯作者: 聂衍刚

Abstract: According to the statistical report of China Internet Network Information Center (2020), as of December 2019, the number of online shopping users in China has increased year by year, reaching 782 million. Many marketing strategies also aims at college students in late adolescence. Buying has become a daily behavior of college students, which has aroused wide attention of the society. With the continuous progress of science and technology, it is more and more convenient for college students to buy, but it has brought serious social problems of impulsive buying to college students. Impulsive buying not only brings immediate satisfaction to college students, but also brings a series of problems such as debt burden and the sense of guilt. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the psychological mechanism of impulsive buying of college students. In order to prevent and intervene impulsive buying better and avoid the negative effects of impulsive buying, this paper puts forward a moderated mediation model based on previous studies to explore its internal psychological mechanism. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring the impact of social exclusion on impulsive buying, as well as the mediating role of celebrity worship and the moderating role of self-control. Based on perspective of cognitive-affective system theory, the social exclusion theory and the self-control theory and other theories, we used social exclusion scale, celebrity worship scale, self-control dual system scale and impulsive buying scale to investigate 811 college students in the late adolescence. The macro program PROCESS of SPSS 23.0 was used to process and analyze the data. By estimating the three equations, we tested the impact of social exclusion on impulsive buying, the mediating role of celebrity worship and the moderating role of self-control. The results indicated that: (1) After all the predictors were standardized and controlling for gender, age, family monthly income and monthly living expenses, social exclusion could significantly positively predict impulsive buying; (2) Social exclusion predicted impulsive buying through the mediating role of celebrity worship; (3) The mediating role of celebrity worship and the direct influence of social exclusion on impulsive buying were moderated by self-control. Specifically, in terms of direct effect, compared with high self-control college students, low self-control college students' social exclusion had a greater predictive effect on their impulsive buying. The moderated mediation model was well proven. As a positive factor, self-control could buffer the adverse effect of social exclusion on impulsive buying. On the mediating path, self-control could moderate the influence of social exclusion on celebrity worship, and the protective effect of self-control was more obvious in the situation of weak social exclusion. The results helped to reveal the formation mechanism of college student impulsive buying, and had a certain guiding significance for the prevention and intervention of impulsive buying. In a word, this study constructed a moderated mediating model to reveal the internal psychological mechanism of impulsive buying, and helped us understand how social exclusion affects college student impulsive buying. In addition, the results of the study also provided some enlightenment for the intervention and prevention of impulsive buying. For example, educators could improve college students' self-control ability through certain course training and physical exercise, or guide them to correctly understand their attachment to celebrities, so as to avoid pathological infatuation, or administrators should formulate reasonable management measures to create a good social environment which could reduce the possibility of social exclusion. There are also some deficiencies in this study. First, there may be other mechanisms behind these relationships. Future research can explore other psychological mechanisms besides celebrity worship. Second, as a cross-sectional study, the causal relationship between variables could not be well inferred. Future research can improve this by focusing on longitudinal research or on methods of experiments. Third, the research objects of this study are mainly concentrated in three universities in Guangzhou, so the generality of the research results is limited by the sample to a certain extent. Future research should expand the sample size and select research objects from other regions.

Key words: social exclusion, celebrity worship, impulsive buying, self-control

摘要: 为探讨社会排斥与冲动性消费的关系及其作用机制,本研究采用社会排斥量表、名人崇拜量表、自我控制双系统量表以及冲动性购买倾向量表,对811名大学生进行调查。结果表明:(1)在控制性别、年龄、家庭月收入和每月生活费后,社会排斥显著正向预测冲动性消费;(2)名人崇拜在社会排斥和冲动性消费间起部分中介作用;(3)自我控制在中介路径的前半段及直接路径间起调节作用。本研究有助于对大学生冲动性消费的理解和干预。

关键词: 社会排斥, 名人崇拜, 冲动性消费, 自我控制