ESRC Research Group on lifestyles, values and environment Mindfulness and Compulsive Buying Alison Armstrong [email protected] Birgitta Gatersleben and Tim Jackson “Retail Therapy” • 10-15% of population • Women probably more than men • Occurs alongside depression, anxiety, low self- esteem, and other compulsive behaviours Mindfulness “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003) Conceptual Links Psychological Compulsive Buying Affective Mindfulness Behavioural • Study design: •Intervention: standard Mindfulness-Based Course •6 Compulsive Buyers (+ 2 control groups) •Qualitative and quantitative data collection Before Mindfulness Intervention: Being a Compulsive Buyer Mental Health • Depression: Shopping to alleviate negative affect: June: “I hate the house because my son’s always complaining that the house is dirty and there’s always jobs to do here, and I think partly it’s escaping from the grind of housework and that sort of responsibility” • Inability to tolerate anxiety: Fran: “The minute, like yesterday, whether it’s because I was feeling anxious, or, I found a reason to go into the shops” • Seeking positive affect: Fran: “it’s how I imagine you know, like a Disney world, with sparkles, you know, it’s just this colourful, exciting and lovely place to be” Identity • Threatened Identity: June: “as you get older you get this fear of aging, and people think I’m looking older, and you worry about aging [and] cosmetics is my greatest weakness, the expensive ones, if they’ve bought out a new face cream [ ] and it’s in my favourite brand, I have to have it” • Self-Discrepancy & Fragility: June: “it is like you’re leading a double life, there’s this woman who goes shopping all the time, who’s buying things for a, to be a woman, some other woman, and then there’s me that’s, you know, that doesn’t really know who I am any more” Addictive Elements • Inability to self-regulate: Fran: “once I bought one thing, that’s it, I can’t, it’s licence to, well while I’m here I’d better get this, this, this, and by the time I’d finished, just of a hundred pounds later.” Consequences • Depression, anxiety, debt: June: “I’m aware of depression being there, and I mean the anxiety, and of course it gets worse because the last year or two I’ve realised what an enormous debt I have mounted up and the anxiety’s so great now, I’m like treading on egg shells” Social Context • Availability of credit: June: “they give you credit cards, I mean, they should never have given me a credit card of three and a half thousand because it’s like someone had given me the money. It’s so irrational” • Relentless advertising: Fran: “you see all these before and after on television and think “gosh yes, they look twenty times better, that’s what I’ll look like”” • Cultural role models • Shopping as norm: “retail therapy” After Mindfulness Intervention: What Happens When Compulsive Buyers Learn Mindfulness Mental Health Changes • Reduced anxiety and depression: June: “I’ve felt much more positive as well, not so down on myself” • Greater tolerance of negative affect: Fran: “I had to sit with that uncomfortable “oh I need to sort it out for him, I don’t want him to be going through this”, I sat with that and it sort of worked itself out.”