Relationship between Time Perspective and Impulse Buying Tendencies - Report Example

Running head: TIMЕ РЕRSРЕСTIVЕ АND IMРULSЕ BUYING TЕNDЕNСIЕS Relationship between time Perspective and Impulse Buying Tendencies Name: Affiliation: Course Information: Professor Information: Date Due: Abstract The aim of this cross-sectional study is to investigate relationship between time perspective and impulse buying tendencies. One of the hypotheses is existence of relationships between time perspectives and both aspects of impulse – cognitive and affective. Secondly, the study predicts that there is significant relationship between present-hedonistic perspective with impulsive behaviour (cognitive and affective) and consequences. The third prediction is that impulse buying (cognitive and affective) has significant positive relationship with consequences. Lastly, the paper predicts significant negative relationship between future orientation and cognitive aspect of impulse buying. Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, Impulse Buying Tendency Scale, and Impulse Consequences Scale are used in the study. The design of the questionnaire used is such that participants honestly respond to questions asked and scores them on Likert scale. The result suggests that future orientation is negatively correlated with impulsive behaviour and consequences. However, present-hedonistic orientation is positively associated with impulsiveness and consequences. These results practically imply that people who plan for their futures are very unlikely to indulge in impulse buying and often do not encounter negative consequences. In the same vein, those people who are concerned with present pleasures are liable to impulsive behaviour and experience bad consequences. Introduction This paper is a report on cross-sectional study conducted to investigate relationship that exists between time perspective and impulse buying strategies. As opposed to following economic perspective of consumer demand, most buyers are driven by desire, emotion, and mood when making a purchase. This means that instead of buying a product because of necessity, most consumers make a purchase because of mood swings, the need for fun, and many other reasons that are mostly personal in nature. This way of making a purchase is not rational in nature hence classified as impulse buying. Silvera, Lavack and Kropp (2008) defines impulse buying as unplanned and sudden purchase done to satisfy an urge and to attain specific level of pleasure. It is therefore apparent that impulse buying lacks planning and deliberation and elicit emotional response on the buyer. Regrets because of unnecessary spending are some of the problems accompanying people who fail to plan for expenses. There is no doubt that impulse buying fits well with a perspective that attitudes are driven by emotions and cognitions. Various factors might motivate an individual to indulge in impulse buying. Physical appearance of a product, positive cues, and attractive features such as appealing colours play a critical role in driving an individual to make unplanned purchases. These factors are positively deployed by stores to increase sales through consumer impulse buying. Moreover, time and money contributes to impulse buying. Individual differences, educational experiences, norm, and status of moods can as well stimulate impulse buying. Bearing in mind that individual differences i.e. identity issues, can catalyse impulse buying, personalised intervention measures can be employed to address the problem. A cross-sectional study was done by Verplanken and Herabadi (2001) on sample of undergraduate Norwegian students using scale measuring impulse buying tendencies. Correlation was then established with individual need for structures, evaluation, cognition, and action against state orientation. Cognitive and affective facets were found to relate significantly with individual difference measures. The study showed that cognitive facet varied inversely with the need for structures. On the other hand, affective domain had relationship with action orientation. Zimbardo and Boyd (1999) presented extensive studies on Time Perspective and personality traits. According to the scholars, present-hedonistic time perspective is a reflection of a personality trait that does not take risks. Such individuals are concerned about present enjoyment hence do not plan for their future lives or consequences that arises from present enjoyment. One of the items in Present-hedonistic perspective is “I often follow my heart more than my head” (Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999, p. 1275). The other time perspective is Future Orientation, which pays attention to achieving future goals and rewards. People who operate in line with this time perspective frequently show resistance to tempting situation because they focus on attaining planned goals. This report attempts to establish that impulse buying tendency has its basis on personality. It therefore means individual differences in terms of personality indicate the vulnerability to impulse buying. Accordingly, there is a likelihood that people who fail to plan their activities will not plan their purchases resulting in impulse buying. This is also true with people who often take an action before giving it thought, i.e. action orientation. The cross-sectional study was developed with an objective of establishing an association between time perspective and impulse buying i.e. whether time orientation has a relationship with impulse buying and consequences. Impulse-buying tendencies were analyzed with the use of 20 items and 2 sub-scales. The subscales included cognitive and affective, which had 10 items each. As a comparison measure, self-assessment was done and results captured on 5-point Likert scale with 1 - strong disagreement and 5 - strong agreement. For each subscale, responses were summed. Higher scores for example in cognitive subscale meant that participants had high affinity to impulse buying. Besides, Impulse Buying Consequence Scale was constructed with a total of six items and 1 sub-scales. Self-report was also done on 4-point Likert scale and participant’s responses scored appropriately. In the last section, time orientation was placed in perspective. The first hypothesis is existence of a relationship between time perspectives and both aspects of impulse buying – cognitive and affective facets. This is because people who set goals are less likely to find pleasure in short term activities but regularly strive to reach long-term goals. Secondly, the study predicts that there is significant relationship between present-hedonistic perspective with impulsive behaviour (cognitive and affective) and consequences. The third prediction is that impulse buying (cognitive and affective) has significant relationship with consequences. The rationale is that individuals who avoid plans and long-term goals usually find themselves buying anything at any time and end up regretting. Lastly, the paper predicts significant negative relationship between future orientation and cognitive aspect of impulse buying. Methodology Participants Participants were students in psychology class who offered to participate in the research by filling out questionnaires. The sample size was 119 students comprising of 20 males and 99 females aged between 17 and 57. Mean age and standard deviation of participants was 27.8 and 9.46 respectively. Participants were selected through a random process to avoid giving biased outcome. Each participant was also required to fill the questionnaire individually without being influenced by other students. Owing to the reason that the research was purely for informative and educational purposes, students were more than willing to participate in the research. Materials Questionnaires were used in collection of data. Concisely, Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, Impulse Buying Tendency Scale, and Impulse Consequences Scale were pertinent in the cross-sectional study. Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory is a tool that guides participants to rate their responses on a scale of 1-5 i.e. 1 being very uncharacteristic and 5 as very characteristic (Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999). The study used two subscale including 10 items on Future Orientation and 19 items on Present-hedonistic orientation. The items on Future orientation show existence of structures and planning while Present-hedonistic orientations are deficit of planning and goals. Through analysis process, the outcome will show participants as Present-hedonistic orientation or future orientation. Impulse Buying Scale was used in assessing cognitive and affective impulsive behaviour of participants. This tool required participants to respond to 20 items of cognitive and affective domain, 10 items in each facet. The response was measured on Likert scale of 5 points. To know strength of participant tendency towards impulse buying, scores for subscale was developed, First Items 1, 2, 4-8 and 14 were coded in reverse order, which was then followed by summation to obtain the highest and lowest score. A high score in cognitive subcategory showed less planning and deliberation ahead of buying. On the other hand, high scores imply that buyer had high emotional attachment with purchases previously made. Lastly, instrument of Impulse Consequences Scale seeks to measure difference between individuals in the way they think about consequences of their behaviours (Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999, p. 1276). Six items and a single sub-scale were necessary in the study and calculation was done by summing up feedback on 4-point Likert scale. High scores reflected severe consequences following impulsive behaviour. Procedures The cross-sectional study extensively utilized questionnaire to obtain data for analysis. Participants were supposed to respond to items in the questionnaire in a single session. All participants were randomly chosen and asked if they were willing to participate voluntarily in a psychology research project. The first part of the questionnaire sort to understand impulse buying tendencies. Participants were informed that the questionnaire did not have right or wrong answers and that the questions were constructed to realize their impulse buying behaviour. They gave their responses on 20 items covering cognitive and affective subscales. The participants measured themselves on 5-point Likert Scale hence were to indicate whether they strongly agree, disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree with the statements. In the second part of the questionnaire, participants were given clear explanation that the set questions was about consequences experienced due to impulse purchases made. The response was on frequency of consequences experienced due to impulse purchases. They gave their responses to six items to reflect severity of consequences of impulse buying. The last part of questionnaires contained 10 items on future orientation and 19 items on Present-hedonistic orientation. Participants were called upon to fill out their responses to these items on 5-point Likert items with 1 - very uncharacteristic and 5 - very characteristic. Responses were then summed up to obtain scores for each of the five items on Likert Scale. Results In the study, the hypotheses were tested with correlational analyses. The results of the study were tabulated in the table 1 below: Table 1 Correlations Impulse buying (cognitive) Impulse buying (affective) Consequences Future Present-hedonistic -0.39** 0.32** -0.06 0.25** -0.15 0.17 *=significant at p Read More