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This study was designed to explore the nature of compulsive buying behavior with respect to self esteem and money attitude variables. Conjointly, a newly developed screening device, the Compulsive Buying Scale, was used to test its ability to discern compulsive buying tendencies amongst consumers. Comparison was made with participating members of intact compulsive buying help groups and "normal" consumers. Compulsive buyers were found to significantly differ from normal consumers on variables tested. Compulsive buyers were found to have lower self esteem with money attitudes reflecting obsession with money and its perceived power and prestige. Likewise, compulsive buyers differed significantly on the Compulsive Buying Scale adding support to the validity of the scale.

This thesis contends that the subjective meanings and value attached to money may, in part, be a function of identity-related norms and values. This proposed relationship between identity issues and monetary attitudes/behaviour is explored across a series of methodologically diverse studies. It is argued that psychological approaches to money, despite their efforts to the contrary, frequently concur with traditional economic models of human behaviour in so far as they rest on similarly static, de-contextualised notions of the self. The research described here aims to substitute these implicit assumptions about the nature of selfhood with a social psychological account of the 'self and thus with an explicit focus on subjective identification processes, ha doing so, the present approach draws on the Social Identity tradition. First, findings from an exploratory interview study illustrate a) that identity concerns are central for people's understandings of money, b) that the relationship between money and selfhood is dilemmatic, and c) that money meanings and usage relate to identity across different levels of abstractions (i.e. personal, social, human). Second, a series of experimental studies (based on predictions derived from the Social Identity model of the self) shows that attitudes towards money can vary as a function of both social identity salience and the comparative context in which a given identity is salient. The association between social identification, specific identity contents and monetary attitudes is also addressed. Finally, an exploration of the relationship between identity concerns and decision-making processes within a Prisoner's Dilemma-type setting indicates that identity and the social knowledge derived from it play a crucial role, not only with regard to how people attempt to meet their goals in this context but also in terms of how these goals are defined. The broader implication of these findings with regard to 'rational choice' models of human agency are discussed.

by Ng Kwok-Kee, Paul. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1980. / Bibliography: leaves 51-52.

This thesis confronts the ‘taken-for-granted’ nature of money. It explores the word ‘money’ itself, contrasting the way it is used/defined in the economics discourse with the way it has been approached in the psychological discourse. The thesis crosses disciplinary boundaries in an attempt to come closer to the everyday, personal experience of money. It unwraps the childhood history of money, showing how adult money attitudes emerge from unconscious predispositions and childhood experience. It demonstrates the importance of ‘control’ as a variable and the lifelong balancing act which takes place between spending and saving. Today, the form of money is in the process of change. It has undergone significant changes before: the nineteenth century adoption of paper money upset the bullionists as much as plastic or virtual money can unsettle traditionalists at the end of the twentieth century. Attitudes to the underlying substance 'money' remain relevant, whatever physical form the currency takes. Thus, gold and silver coins, the treasure of childhood pirate stories, may retain mental currency long after their demise as physical currency. Indeed, the more money becomes abstracted from something tangible, the more it is necessary to understand the primal nature of the underpinning attitudes that are affected.