Post‐traumatic consumption: Does emotion regulation moderate the relationship between military life stressors, mental health outcomes, and compulsive buying?

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• Author: Cristel A. Russell,Dale W. Russell,Christine Harris
• Date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12519

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Post-traumatic consumption: Does emotion

regulation moderate the relationship between

military life stressors, mental health outcomes,

and compulsive buying?

Cristel A. Russell

1

| Dale W. Russell

2

| Christine Harris

3

1

Graziadio School of Business,

Pepperdine University, Malibu,

California, USA

2

Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed

Services University of the Health

Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

3

Department of Psychology, University of

California San Diego, La Jolla,

California, USA

Correspondence

Cristel A. Russell, Graziadio School of

Business, Pepperdine University, 24255

Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA, USA.

Email: cristel.russell@pepperdine.edu

Abstract

Purpose: Consumers may cope with stressful events

and their resulting negativementalhealthoutcomes

through maladaptive behaviors. One such behavior is

compulsive buying, an uncontrolled urge to purchase

things. This can have devastating financial consequences,

especially among vulnerable members of the population.

Emotion regulation research suggests that differences in

individuals' ability to manage and cope with stressors

may attenuate their negativeconsequences.Thus,this

research investigates whetherexpressivesuppressionand

cognitive reappraisal, two types of emotion regulation,

moderate whether and how stressors related to a militar y

deployment and its mental health outcomes relate to

compulsive consumption.

Approach: This prospective naturalistic multiphase

study followed a US Army unit during a combat deploy-

ment cycle and analyzed survey data collected before, dur-

ing, and after its members' deployment to Afghanistan.

Findings: The findings identify the moderating role of

emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between

mental health symptoms and compulsive buying.

Servicemembers with high mental health symptoms were

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the US Government, the

US Department of Defense, or the Uniformed Services University.

Received: 24 November 2021 Revised: 14 October 2022 Accepted: 20 January 2023

DOI: 10.1111/joca.12519

Copyright 2023 by The American Council on Consumer Interests.

J Consum Aff. 2023;57:1183–1212. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joca 1183

less likely to engage in compulsive buying if they had

high expressive suppression. Although the emotion regu-

latory profile of high suppression and low reappraisal is

usually considered the least beneficial, it emerges as a

buffer against engaging in compulsive buying behavior.

Originality: This field study explored the rarely

researched topic of compulsive buying within a mili-

tary population that routinely faces stressful situations.

The research also contributes to the growing body of

evidence of the role of strategies for emotion regulation

in the context of potentially maladaptive behaviors in

the marketplace.

KEYWORDS

compulsive buying, emotion regulation, field study, mental

health, reappraisal, stress, suppression

1|INTRODUCTION

Compulsive buying is a widely recognized mental disorder broadly defined by individuals'

inability to resist an impulse to gain material goods or sensory experiences in a way harmful to

either themselves and/or others (Faber & Christenson, 1996; Ridgway et al., 2008; Valence

et al., 1988). Some have referred to compulsive buying as retail therapy; indeed, prior research

has found that compulsive buying can help people cope with various stressors such as low self-

esteem, natural disasters, or fear of death in the face of illness (Hunter, 2018). However, compul-

sive buying can also result in clinical treatment, financial ruin, and strained social relationships

(Harnish et al., 2019; Müller et al., 2019;O'Guinn&Faber,1989). Given the variety of processes

underlying compulsive buying, more research is warranted to explore the relationship between

exposure to stressors and compulsive buying outcomes, as well as to identify moderators of such

relationships.

To that end, the current work investigated the role of two primary traits of emotion regula-

tion (ER), cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, in the relationship between profes-

sional stressors, commonly studied mental health (MH) outcomes, and compulsive buying. The

study focused on combat soldiers over the course of an operational deployment, a group not yet

studied in this respect. Although there is no comprehensive research in the domain of compul-

sive buying within the military, growing concern about its association with other negative

health outcomes has led to calls for servicemembers to be screened for it during medical

encounters (Etuk et al., 2022).

Not only do servicemembers routinely face occupational hazards (e.g., combat), they are

often subjected to predatory marketing practices that can result in substantial debt (Kiel, 2013)

and negatively impact their well-being (Bell et al., 2014). Although the United States

(US) instituted the Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act of 2003 to protect them from some business

practices (Mason, 2014), these legal protections fall short of shielding them from a range of

aggressive promotional practices (Martin, 2020). Additionally, military service itself often

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