EMOTIONAL REGULATION FACTORS OF IMPULSE BUYING AND CONFORMITY PSYCHOLOGY
Authors: Fang Xiaobo , Zhang Fangxin , Liao Kun , Ghoreishi Minoo 
Published: July 2022

Background

The existing research on impulse buying behavior mainly discusses the influence of external stimuli on impulse buying intention, while there is less research on the internal psychological factors of impulse buying behavior. This paper aims to explore the psychological process of consumers' compliance with impulsive purchase after reading online word-of-mouth, as well as the regulatory effect of impulsive purchase intention and purchase constraint.

Research Objects and Methods

Taking belief, desire and willingness behavior as the research object, this paper discusses the influence of conformity psychological process on impulsive purchase behavior, as well as the regulatory effect on product demand cognition and purchase constraints. We design a structural equation model from four dimensions: compliance, product desire, impulse purchase intention and product demand cognition. Through this model, we verify the causal relationship between dimensions, the impact of impulsive purchase intention on impulsive purchase behavior and the adjustment of purchase constraints. Through an online survey, 616 valid questionnaires were collected from consumers who had at least online word-of-mouth experience in the past six months.

Results

Consumers' compliance after reading online word-of-mouth had a positive impact on product desire. Consumers' product desire has a positive impact on impulse purchase intention. Impulse purchase intention has a positive impact on impulse purchase behavior. Purchase constraints have a negative regulatory effect on the impact of impulsive purchase intention on impulsive purchase behavior. Product demand cognition has no moderating effect between conformity and product desire. The results showed that impulse purchase was significantly negatively correlated with economic support ability, self-control and emotion perception, emotion evaluation, emotion control and emotion regulation reflex, emotion regulation self-efficacy (P &lt; 0.01), and emotion regulation self-efficacy (P &lt; 0.05); It was positively correlated with self-care ability, emotion regulation ability and all dimensions (P &lt; 0.01); Incentive autonomy and emotion regulation ability were significantly positively correlated with each dimension (P &lt; 0.01); The ability of self-control and emotion regulation were significantly negatively correlated with each dimension (P &lt; 0.01).

Conclusion

The same online word of mouth has different effects on different consumers. This influence depends on the conformity degree of consumers, which affects consumers' product desire and indirectly increases the possibility of consumers' impulse purchase through the increase of impulse purchase intention. Purchase constraint can inhibit impulse buying behavior. If enterprises can effectively connect online word-of-mouth with the product purchase process, when consumers have product desire due to the integration effect caused by online word-of-mouth, they can directly guide consumers to the purchase step, so that consumers can complete the purchase in a short time. Therefore, effectively linking the herd effect of online word-of-mouth with consumers' browsing word-of-mouth is an effective way for enterprises to stimulate herd consumers' impulse buying behavior. From a sequential perspective, this paper discusses the psychological process of consumers' impulse purchase and the role of regulatory variables under the background of the popularity of mobile Internet, and discusses the internal changes of positive and negative emotions in the process of consumers' impulse purchase. This is an in-depth study of online impulse buying behavior.

Acknowledgements

The work is supported by Science and Technology Planning Project of Henan Province of China (soft science research), grant number 212400410095.