Links between types of value orientations and consumer behaviours. An empirical study

Abstract

The present study concerns the phenomenon of the co-dependence of value orientations and consumer behaviours. Although the idea of the overall connections between both areas is not new, the article contributes to the knowledge about relations between very specific consumer behaviours and social value orientations among people married or in an informal partnership. Using the obtained data, we examine to what extent the prosocial, reciprocal, and egoistic value orientations coexist with compensative, compulsive, and demonstrative buying. The analysis confirms the hypotheses that representatives of the reciprocal and egoistic orientations show susceptibility to compensative and compulsive buying to a greater extent than persons preferring other value orientations. In addition, the data show co-dependence of the reciprocal value orientation and demonstrative buying, while the prosocial value orientation seems to protect against compulsive buying. According to the regression analysis, this effect disappears if prosocially oriented persons suffer from low self-esteem at the same time being characterised by strong materialism. All hypothesised relations between value orientations and consumer behaviours have been analysed in multidimensional models considering materialism, self-esteem, age, and gender as the main factors of compensative and compulsive buying. The findings come from the 2017 survey based on a statistically representative sample of 1,121 adult Poles who were then married or in an informal partnership. The German Compulsive Buying Indicator and Lange’s Scale of Demonstrative Buying were introduced to measure consumer behaviours.