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Big Five Personality Traits, Coping Strategies and Compulsive Buying in Spanish University Students

Personality traits and coping strategies have historically been two key elements in the field of health psychology. It is, therefore, striking that there is no study in the field of compulsive buying that integrates the most generic, decontextualized and stable aspects (traits) with those having a m...

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Autores principales: Otero-López, José Manuel, Santiago, María José, Castro, María Cristina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7833433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33477931
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020821
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author Otero-López, José Manuel
Santiago, María José
Castro, María Cristina
author_facet Otero-López, José Manuel
Santiago, María José
Castro, María Cristina
author_sort Otero-López, José Manuel
collection PubMed
description Personality traits and coping strategies have historically been two key elements in the field of health psychology. It is, therefore, striking that there is no study in the field of compulsive buying that integrates the most generic, decontextualized and stable aspects (traits) with those having a more marked processual and dynamic nature, which are closer to goal-based views of human nature (coping strategies). Another weakness of the compulsive buying field is that, despite the confirmed growing increase in compulsive buying in the younger age groups, most studies have been conducted with adult samples. Hence, this study seeks to clarify the role of the Big Five domains and different coping strategies in university students’ compulsive buying. The sample consisted of 1093 participants who were classified as either compulsive buyers or non-compulsive buyers. Both groups were compared regarding sociodemographic variables (gender, age), the Big Five personality traits, and coping strategies through chi-square tests or Student’s t-tests. Besides, a multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine which of these determinants might play a part in the construction of a risk profile for compulsive buying. The results showed that other than gender (specifically being female), Neuroticism and the use of such coping strategies as problem avoidance and wishful thinking are risk factors that increase the propensity for compulsive buying. The use of active coping strategies such as problem solving, cognitive restructuring and social support, as well as the Conscientiousness dimension are protection factors that decrease the likelihood of becoming a compulsive buyer. Finally, and on the basis of the findings obtained, possible guidelines are given, which, hopefully, may effectively contribute to the prevention of and/or intervention in compulsive buying among young adults.
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spelling pubmed-78334332021-01-26 Big Five Personality Traits, Coping Strategies and Compulsive Buying in Spanish University Students Otero-López, José Manuel Santiago, María José Castro, María Cristina Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Personality traits and coping strategies have historically been two key elements in the field of health psychology. It is, therefore, striking that there is no study in the field of compulsive buying that integrates the most generic, decontextualized and stable aspects (traits) with those having a more marked processual and dynamic nature, which are closer to goal-based views of human nature (coping strategies). Another weakness of the compulsive buying field is that, despite the confirmed growing increase in compulsive buying in the younger age groups, most studies have been conducted with adult samples. Hence, this study seeks to clarify the role of the Big Five domains and different coping strategies in university students’ compulsive buying. The sample consisted of 1093 participants who were classified as either compulsive buyers or non-compulsive buyers. Both groups were compared regarding sociodemographic variables (gender, age), the Big Five personality traits, and coping strategies through chi-square tests or Student’s t-tests. Besides, a multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine which of these determinants might play a part in the construction of a risk profile for compulsive buying. The results showed that other than gender (specifically being female), Neuroticism and the use of such coping strategies as problem avoidance and wishful thinking are risk factors that increase the propensity for compulsive buying. The use of active coping strategies such as problem solving, cognitive restructuring and social support, as well as the Conscientiousness dimension are protection factors that decrease the likelihood of becoming a compulsive buyer. Finally, and on the basis of the findings obtained, possible guidelines are given, which, hopefully, may effectively contribute to the prevention of and/or intervention in compulsive buying among young adults. MDPI 2021-01-19 2021-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7833433/ /pubmed/33477931 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020821 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Otero-López, José Manuel
Santiago, María José
Castro, María Cristina
Big Five Personality Traits, Coping Strategies and Compulsive Buying in Spanish University Students
title Big Five Personality Traits, Coping Strategies and Compulsive Buying in Spanish University Students
title_full Big Five Personality Traits, Coping Strategies and Compulsive Buying in Spanish University Students
title_fullStr Big Five Personality Traits, Coping Strategies and Compulsive Buying in Spanish University Students
title_full_unstemmed Big Five Personality Traits, Coping Strategies and Compulsive Buying in Spanish University Students
title_short Big Five Personality Traits, Coping Strategies and Compulsive Buying in Spanish University Students
title_sort big five personality traits, coping strategies and compulsive buying in spanish university students
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7833433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33477931
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020821
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