ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH
Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802
I Feel Bad, Buy, Feel the Pain and Buy Again: Cases Studies of Compulsive Buyers
Katia Bonfanti, NUTIEP - Private Clinic, Brasil
Celso Augusto de Matos, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Programa de Pos-Graduacao em Administracao, PPGAEA-UFRGS, Brasil
Leonardo Teodoro Falcao, NUTIEP - Private Clinic, Brasil
Compulsive consumption is a problem that affects many consumers worldwide. With increasing predatory lending practices in Brazil,
there have been also a growing number of consumers experiencing heavy debts. Two authors of this study who work with family
therapy used a clinical sample of nine cases in order to investigate the themes linked to compulsive consumption. We noticed that
most of the themes are connected to the relationship of the consumer with his/her family. We finish discussing that compulsive
consumers are able to learn a new model of relationship with his/her system (e.g. family) and with consumption.
[to cite]:
Katia Bonfanti, Celso Augusto de Matos, and Leonardo Teodoro Falcao (2008) ,"I Feel Bad, Buy, Feel the Pain and Buy Again:
Cases Studies of Compulsive Buyers", in LA - Latin American Advances in Consumer Research Volume 2, eds. Claudia R.
Acevedo, Jose Mauro C. Hernandez, and Tina M. Lowrey, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 208-208.
[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/14074/la/v2_pdf/LA-02
[copyright notice]:
This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in
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208 / WORKING PAPERS
Most studies on socially excluded group’s focus basically on the dimension of a discriminated and excluded minority, neutralizing
other dimensions such as that of “consumers”. Although this consumer feature may be regarded as an instrument which facilitates the
manipulation of the gay group, we believe that this instrumentality can also be used to help the gay group cope with the stigma socially
imposed upon them.
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I Feel Bad, Buy, Feel the Pain and Buy Again: Cases Studies of Compulsive Buyers
Katia Bonfanti, NUTIEP, Private Clinic, Brazil
Celso Augusto de Matos, PPGA-EA-UFRGS, Brazil
Leonardo Teodoro Falcão, NUTIEP, Private Clinic, Brazil
Compulsive consumption is a disorder that affects many individuals in a world in which materialistic culture and intrusive marketing
campaigns place the consumers all the time with ‘temptations’ to buy. In Brazil, the volume of credit has reached about 34% of the Brazilian
GDP and the level of debts has achieved alarming levels (Procon 2007). In addition, the relative stability in the Brazilian economy
encourages companies to open credit for consumers, who often make their buying decision based on the value of each payment and does
not even ask for the interest rates.
This condition of “easy” access to money in Brazil in the last years is the background in which the aspect of compulsive consumption
manifests. This behavior and the related factors have been studied worldwide both in the field of Marketing (Faber and O’Guinn 1988;
Hill and Kozup 2007) and Psychology/Psychiatry (e.g. Park, Cho and Seo 2006). Even though there have been studies in the marketing
field investigating the characteristics and antecedents of compulsive buying, such as compulsive personality and low self-esteem, the
reasons why some consumers are more likely to buy compulsively than others are still not well known by consumer researchers.
Moreover, there has been a lack of attention for the family issues and the history of life of the compulsive buyer in the marketing
science. There are few studies investigating the consumer in a family system and how the process of interaction with the family can
contribute to the compulsive buying behavior. The existing studies (e.g., Rindfleisch, Burroughs and Denton 1997; Roberts, Manolis and
Tanner 2006) usually consider family structure only by whether spouses are divorced or not. Thus, by borrowing a broader view of ‘family
structure’ from the family therapy theory and practice (Minuchin and Fishman 1981), the analysis of the compulsive buying behavior could
be enhanced by new insights.
In terms of methodological approach, this study used the method of multiple-case studies. Two of the authors has been working with
family therapy for many years and selected a clinical sample of nine cases in order to investigate the variables related to compulsive
consumption. The main source of evidence was the archival records owned by the authors, who were treating these individuals as patients
of therapy. Also, as these authors have worked with most of the patients for one year or more, the cases are well known by them.
Each case was reviewed and analyzed by the therapists. Complementing the archival records, further information was provided by
the therapist who was treating the specific cases. Six of the nine cases received co-therapy (i.e. a reflective team of four therapists and one
psychiatrist). The central themes that emerged in this discussion are presented in this study.
We noticed that the family was a central aspect in all of the discussion. Most of the themes are connected to the relationship of the
consumer with his/her family. This is in agreement with previous elaboration that the family structure has an influence on compulsive
consumption (Rindfleisch, Burroughs and Denton 1997). For example, the lack of control in the expenses by a spouse triggered conflicts
between them. A conflict in itself is a major motivation for spouses to look for family therapy. But the root of these conflicts might be
based in a number of factors and the aspect of consumption disorder might be among of them.
Another relevant theme related to the family was that there are cases in which someone in the family system is benefited from the
compulsive buyer disorder. For example, it was noticed that a husband was spending high amounts of money and criticizing the wife for
not being able to get home without a new possession. This is named as the circularity of the symptoms.
The theme of a secret in the family of origin was also a relevant one. It was noticed that in some of the analyzed cases the individual
was not sure about the true father figure. Related to this theme is the one of childhood without the presence of the father. Indeed, recent