Compulsive Buying Behavior is a serious issue. Although the developers of the DSM-5 chose not to include shopping addiction, the 2014 review noted that some of the craving and withdrawal symptoms some people experience may resemble addictions. Shopping can act as a distraction from unpleasant emotions. She adds that addiction involves both physical and psychological factors. Physically, the brain chemicals released when shopping can give people a high, while psychologically, people can buy things that help them cope with stress or feel in control.
The exact causes of shopping addiction on not entirely clear, but several factors may play a role.
Usually beginning in one's late teens and early adulthood, shopping addiction often co-occurs with other disorders, including mood and anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, eating disorders, other impulse control disorders, and personality disorders
This difficulty in controlling the desire to shop emerges from a personality pattern that shopaholics share and that differentiates them from most other people. They are often low in self-esteem and are easily influenced and often kindhearted, sympathetic, and polite to others, although they are often lonely and isolated. Shopping gives them a way to seek out contact with others.
People with shopping addiction tend to be more materialistic than other shoppers and try to support themselves by seeking status through objects and seeking acceptance and consent from others. They indulge in fantasies more than others and, like other addicts, have difficulty resisting their impulses.
Shopaholics may be more sensitive to the marketing and advertising messages that surround us daily. While advertising is generally designed to exaggerate the positive outcome of a purchase and suggest that the purchase will save you from life's troubles, some marketing tricks are designed to stimulate impulsive buying activities and targets explicitly the impulsive nature of shopaholics.
As with other addictions, shopping addiction is often a way to cope with pain and emotional difficulties. Unfortunately, this tends to make things worse for the better for the buyer.
No one reason can explain or precisely trace the course of compulsive purchasing. Some have proposed a biopsychosocial model to explain this behavior. As the compound name implies, this concept contends that biological, psychological, and societal variables can all contribute to the development of compulsive purchasing. This strategy has been demonstrated to work with various excessive and addictive behaviors.
Research evaluating lifetime comorbidity and family history and more direct data from medication studies point to the likelihood of biological causes. Some experts suggest that a hereditary component may predispose persons from families with one form of impulse control illness to this and other diseases. Alcoholism research, for example, has discovered that sons of alcoholic fathers are four times more likely than other men to become alcoholics, even when raised away from their fathers. Several studies have revealed that persons with impulse control difficulties are considerably more likely than the general population to have relatives with various impulse control disorders. Compulsive buying can also be found among people with Parkinson's or frontotemporal dementia.
The most commonly studied biological reason includes neurotransmitter levels affecting mood states. Numerous medical research has sought to utilize medicines to modify brain chemistry to establish whether this lessens compulsive purchasing desires and behaviors. Some very small-scale investigations indicated that antidepressant use lowered shopping desires and purchasing behaviors, indicating that depression drives compulsive buying and that medication therapy lowers depression. Another study, however, has indicated that individuals who are not depressed report that pharmacological therapy significantly lowers purchasing thoughts and cravings. This shows that sadness may not entirely buffer the link between brain chemistry and purchasing desires and behavior. More recent research has found that when compulsive shoppers are treated with drugs, they experience fewer purchasing episodes, buy less, and have fewer cravings to buy.
According to one study, 17 of the 18 compulsive purchasers evaluated had a family with a psychiatric problem. Moreover, 61% had a close member who was diagnosed with alcoholism or substance misuse, and 17% had a relative who was diagnosed with an anxiety illness. Another research of a small sample of compulsive purchasers found that half had a first-degree relative with alcoholism or substance misuse, 50% had a mood issue, and 40% had a compulsive buying problem.
According to research, compulsive purchasers usually have a history of drug misuse, mood problems, and anxiety disorders. Other studies have also found a link between compulsive shopping, eating problems, and other impulse control issues. While comorbidity can develop for reasons other than biological origins, some hypotheses claim that shared biological or genetic disorders are at the root of all these diseases.
Some of the psychological conditions associated with compulsive shopping are −
Emotional deprivation in childhood
Inability to tolerate negative feelings
Need to fill an inner void – empty and longing inside
Excitement seeking
Approval seeking
Perfectionism
Genuinely impulsive and compulsive
Need to gain control
CBD often has roots in early experience. Perfectionism, general impulsiveness and compulsiveness, dishonesty, insecurity, and the need to gain control have also been linked to the disorder. From a medical point of view, a desire for positive stimuli causes impulse control disorder. The usual way of functioning in a healthy brain is the regulation of the prefrontal cortex that governs reward activity. However, in people with conduct disorder, this particular system malfunctions. Scientists have reported that compulsive shoppers have significantly different activity in this brain region. There is no single known cause of shopping addiction, but several contributing factors may exist.
Compulsive shopping behavior seems to represent self-seeking behavior in individuals with neither a certain nor a reliable sense of identity, as demonstrated by how shopping often provides cognitive cues in personal or social form. People with related disorders such as PTSD/CPTSD, anxiety, depression, and poor impulse control are particularly likely to try to treat symptoms of low self-esteem through compulsive shopping behavior. Others objected, however, arguing that such psychological explanations for compulsive buying do not apply to all people with CBD. Social conditions also play an essential role in CBD, with the development of a consumer culture contributing to compulsive shopping being seen as a particularly postmodern addiction, especially for online shopping platforms.
Credit cards are readily available that sometimes allow spending beyond a person's means, and some would suggest that compulsive shoppers lock or cancel their credit cards altogether. Online shopping also makes CBD, the online auction addiction used to escape feelings of depression or guilt, a recognizable problem. Most of the reasons for compulsive purchases are psychological. Often, a person will feel lonely and depressed, feel out of control in a particular area, and find ways to spend money to relieve stress. Spending addiction is a symptom or a fleeting warning sign that there are deep-seated emotions that a person is trying to avoid confronting. Addict indulges themselves in shopping to help numb those troubling feelings- for a while.
According to some data, those with high MVOs are likelier to develop a shopping addiction. So, it would seem that one of the causes of addiction may be how much people value their items. Nevertheless, as of now, there is not enough solid study to back up such a claim. What is more evident is that there is unquestionably a connection between obsessive consumption and poor self-esteem. This may also help to partially explain the connection between high MVOs and addiction since some people may think that having particular goods will make them feel more self-assured. Also, narcissistic people are more prone to fall into the addicted consuming trap because of their need to be admired by others, according to research. According to the theory, having particular assets would make others envy narcissistic people since they wish to own the same things.
Compulsive buying disorder (CBD) is a concern related to buying and buying behavior that is distressing and damaging to the sufferer's life. People with the condition often report feeling anxious before purchasing an item, and this anxiety subsides when they purchase. CBD treatment often involves a type of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). This type of therapy is aimed at helping patients recognize the thought patterns and emotional triggers that lead to problematic purchasing behavior.
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