Compulsive comorbidity and its psychological antecedents: a cross‐cultural comparison between the US and South Korea

Abstract

Compulsion to buy is an important but neglected aspect of consumer behavior. This research uses cross‐cultural data from the USA and South Korea to study compulsive consumption behavior by focusing on individual factors. Three compulsive consumption behaviors (i.e. compulsive buying, compulsive substance abuse, and compulsive gambling/lottery play) are analyzed via structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that comorbidity (i.e. coexistence of more than two related compulsive consumption behaviors) is found in both countries. With one exception, the predicted personality traits (i.e. obsessive thoughts, risk‐taking tendencies) are significantly related to compulsive consumption behaviors in both countries.