Dr. Alison Armstrong on Mindfulness and Psychologically Motivated Consumption SLRG-Lunchtime Seminar, University of Surrey - 23 January 2013 For more information visit the SLRG website: http://www.sustainablelifestyles.ac.uk

1. ESRC Research Group on lifestyles, values and
environment
Mindfulness and Compulsive
Buying
Dr. Alison Armstrong
alison@presentminds.org
SLRG Seminar: 23rd January 2013

2. Background & Motivation
• Over-consumption in the west
• Poor for individual wellbeing
• Poor for social wellbeing
• Poor for ecological wellbeing
• Mindfulness
• Popularised Buddhist technique encouraging non-
judgemental awareness of the present moment
• Shown effective for improving individual, social and
ecological wellbeing
• Intuitive connection

3. Consumption
• Psychologically motivated
• Affective “Retail Therapy”
Symbolic Self-Completion Theory
• Symbolic (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982)
Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987;
Higgins et al, 1990; Higgins et al, 1992)
• (Functional)

4. When it’s Out of Control
• The Compulsive Buyer
• Spontaneous urges to buy experienced as intense
and urgent
• Related to positive affect: excitement, stimulation,
feeling good
• Lack of control
• Continues despite negative consequences
• Often seek experience of buying rather than the good
itself
• Addiction: bio-psychosocial

5. Compulsive Buying
• Women probably more than men
• 5.5% -16% of population
• Peak occurrence as young adults
• Occurs alongside depression, anxiety, low self-
esteem, and other compulsive behaviours

6. Mindfulness
• “the awareness that emerges through
paying attention on purpose, in the
present moment, and non-judgementally
to the unfolding of experience moment by
moment” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003)
• Collection of facets?
• Awareness, observing
• Paying attention, focus
• Non-judgemental
• Non-reactivity to experience, accepting
• Describing experience

7. How to Develop
Mindfulness
• Meditation
• Attend a course
• Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)
• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
• Vipassana (Insight) meditation
• Practice (formal and informal)
• Effectiveness
• Mood disorders, self-esteem, self-regulation, sense of
self (identity)

8. Conceptual Links
Psychological
Over-Consumption
/ Compulsive Affective Mindfulness
Buying
Behavioural

9. Compulsive Buyers Learning
Mindfulness:
Research Questions
• What is it like to be a compulsive buyer?
• What is it like for compulsive buyers to learn
mindfulness?
• What impact on life/shopping?
• Is there measurable change compared to
control groups?
• What can be said about the psychological
process of change?
• What are the implications for consumption /
sustainability more broadly?

10. Study Design
T1 TM T2 T3
8 week
Mindfulness
Intervention
Compulsive Interview (1) Questionnaire Interview (2) Interview (3)
Buyers Questionnaire (mindfulness Questionnaire Questionnaire
learning Receipts only) Receipts
Mindfulness
(6) Video
Compulsive Questionnaire Questionnaire
Buyers not
learning
Mindfulness
(6)
“Normal” Questionnaire Questionnaire Questionnaire
Buyers (mindfulness
learning only)
Mindfulness
(6) Video

11. Variable being Measured Scale chosen
Mindfulness Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al, 2006)
Compulsive Buying Scale (d’Astous, Maltais &
Tendency to compulsively buy
Roberge, 1990)
Quantitative Data
Obsessive-compulsiveness of shopping cognitions and Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale – Shopping
behaviours Version (Monahan, Black & Gabel, 1996)
Impulse Buying Impulse Buying Scale (Dittmar, Beattie & Friese, 1996)
Reported (Ethical) Buying (Pepper, Jackson & Uzzell,
Reported pro-social and pro-environmental buying
2009)
Obsessive-compulsiveness Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (Foa et al, 2002)
Depression Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Steer & Brown,
1996; Beck et al, 1996)
Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck et al, 1988; Beck &
Anxiety
Steer, 1990)
Satisfaction with Life Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al, 1985)
Positive and Negative Affect Scale (Watson, Clark &
Affect experiences
Tellegen, 1988)
Self-esteem
Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965; 1989)
Self-Discrepancy Index (Dittmar, Beattie & Friese,
Identity self-discrepancy
1996)
Habit Index of Negative Thinking (Verplanken et al,
Negative self-image
2007)
Materialism Material Value Scale (Richins & Dawson, 1992)
Tolerance of uncertainty
Need for Closure Scale (Kruglanski, 2010; Webster &
Kruglanski, 1994) Ambiguity subscale only
Psychological distancing Experience Questionnaire (Fresco et al, 2007)
Spirituality Spirituality Assessment Scale (Howden, 1992)

12. Before Mindfulness Intervention:
Being a Compulsive Buyer

13. The Emotional Role of
Buying
Feeling dreadful
Fran: “things I find particularly hard are decisions to do with
my children, ‘cause I feel whatever I’m doing or decide will
affect them and erm, yea, if I’m faced with two decisions, I’ll
analyse and look at both sides, because each one could have
a knock-on effect, and then I’ll take that beyond to “if I go
down that route the knock-on effect from that, from that, from
that” and then down. So by the time, again, by the time I’ve
finished, I’ve lived through so many events that couldn’t
possibly happen [... but] I’m responsible, have to be
responsible for any misfortune that might happen to them.”

14. The Emotional Role of
Buying
Buying to feel better
Fran: “I get caught up in the whole world of shopping, which
takes me away from worrying about, perhaps things I don’t
want to, ‘cause I’m worrying about the shopping “should I take
it back?””
Katie: “I just had massive, massive panic attacks all the time.
(...) and so I think I was trying to make myself feel better and
actually have control over something else, and I think that’s
when [the shopping] started to get quite bad, (...) to go and do
something and make yourself feel a little bit better, a little bit
brighter”
Katie: “it’s kinda like getting a present, ‘cause you’re kinda
opening it up, they’re kinda wrapped up”
Katie: “when I go out of the house or whatever [wearing
something new], I just feel like, erm, I don’t feel as normal as I
do every other day”

15. The Emotional Role of
Buying
Buying to feel better Vicious cycles
June: “I’m aware of depression being there that, 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, you know, I’m like treading
on egg shells”
June: “I think it’s the guilt, you know, the awful shame of, you
know, why have you done this? You know, if I had an illness
like a cancer or something, you would say to a friend, but this
is an illness in a way that you can tell no one, you know, it’s
like I’m in some dreaded disease”

16. Symbolic Reasons for
Buying
I don’t know who I am ...
June: “But you sort of want to live this double life, you know, I
mean, I look at my wardrobe and I think, there’s loads of
clothes that I hardly ever wear that were bought on the basis
that I’m a different woman, really. (...) it is like 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, don’t know, you know, what
I’ve done it for.”

17. Symbolic Reasons for
Buying
But I want to be ...
looking / being the part
Maggie: “I have recently just put on a hell of a lot of weight
which I absolutely hate. (...) I hope I can lose this weight.”
June: “I’ve even bought clothes that don’t really fit me, I
bought them from Minuet which is for petite women, because
maybe I wanted to be petite, I don’t know whether it was that
that appealed. They all seemed to look nice, the shape of
them was nice.”
Fran: “I preserve this front. You know, I’m always the Mum at
the school that’s baked all these cakes, you know, I wouldn’t
miss a thing like that. I volunteer for this, that and the other”

18. Symbolic Reasons for
Buying
But I want to be ...
Looking / being the part
Ethan: “I suppose the branding, the label and the
advertisement creates a sense of quality, creates a sense of
excitement. You know, you buy a product that’s just had an
amazing ad campaign and because everyone’s seen it, it’s like
you’re then part of that campaign.”
Katie: “And then you come out, and by the time you get home
you’ve got like five different bags, and you know, you’re kinda
walking along and you think “yea, people can see I’ve been
shopping” and I feel like I’ve had a good day here, especially
with the nice bags that are sort of with the string and
everything, not plastic ones, and that that makes me feel like
you’ve done something worthwhile.”

19. Addicted
I’ll just buy this ...
Maggie: “I think “oh, just this once” sort of thing. “I’ll just do it
now, and then I’ll wear these and that’ll be good, and I’ll get rid
of some others that I’ve got that I don’t want any more, and
then these’ll last me for a few years”. But it doesn’t work like
that.”
Fran: “if I buy something that I think looks nice in one colour
and it, I’ve then got to get it in all the other colours, because I
think “oo, that’s, yea, that does make me look OK, I’d better
get more of those” (...) I get carried away, and almost to the
point where I’m so hyped up in a shop that I get, I’m not really
sure of what I’m doing.”
Katie: “And then you get home and you look at your bags and
you think “fuck it, I can’t afford this, and I’ve done it yet
again”.”

20. Addicted
Broke, yet tripping over
stuff
Fran: “my husband hates it, ‘cause he’s a very ordered
[person] (...) and he says he’s just tripping over stuff, it’s just
stuff, it’s like this collection of stuff in various rooms that I keep
shut away. He, yea, he doesn’t like it, and it has a big impact,
and the children don’t like it ‘cause you can’t get in to these
rooms.”

21. After Mindfulness Intervention:
What Happens When
Compulsive Buyers Learn
Mindfulness

22. Measures Changed

23. Understanding
Mindfulness
June: “it’s more to do with awareness, and it’s not about
relaxing so much, it’s more about your awareness,
heightening your awareness”
Fran: “always on the first day back I want to wear new
clothes, and I didn’t this time. I made myself. I thought “no, I,
why do I need to wear new clothes, wear something I’ve worn
before and see what happens”. That was alright [laugh]. And
I think, yea it is, it’s just doing it differently.”

24. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
So that’s how I think and
I am not my thoughts
feel!
Seeing things differently Stay here; no need to
run away
How different
understanding is I feel better!
achieved

25. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
So that’s how I think and Fran: “I think I realised I’m not very kind to
feel! myself, in fact I think I beat myself up a lot, all
the time.”
Fran: “it’s not the same rush that I get with the shopping, or
that initial, but the overall experience gives a much nicer
feeling. (...) it’s a more relaxed feeling. Whereas with the
shopping it’s that initial rush, all that excitement and then
you’ve got all the coming down from that, and all the worry
and everything afterwards, this might not be the massive rush
at the beginning, it’s a more gentle gradual process in that you
plan it, you go off, we do it we have fun. (...) So the buzz was
less I suppose, but it went on for longer and lasts, and it didn’t
have this awful crash afterwards”
Maggie: “it made me feel extremely panicky and I had to, I had
to sit up, thinking I’ve got to stop this, this is awful”

26. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
So that’s how I think and
feel!
June: “[Marketing messages are] just so unrealistic, I do know
that now, well, I always knew it at the back of my mind, but
you suppress that realistic thought because your, your mind’s
taken over on euphoria”
June: “I mean it’s funny with clothes, I’ve got things in my
wardrobe that I can remember I wore that when I was very
upset, and it’s got emotional attachments. (...) I thought to
myself, well, you know, there’s say, you know a skirt I wore on
holiday and had an argument with my husband while I was
wearing it [laugh], that’s nothing to do with the skirt, (...) I
didn’t see that at all before, (...). You know, and this is why
we’re always looking for something new, that hasn’t got the
attachment.”

27. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
Seeing things differently
Fran: “She said, you have to just accept that’s how it is and
just think, right, well I’m going to be choppy at this time. And I
found just by doing that, things would appear on the turbulent
sea, that’s how it is. So I do try to do that, when I get times
that difficult I do try to do that and think “well, this is how it is,
just have to accept that it is choppy and I can’t necessarily do
anything about it””
A: “And do you find that you are able to accept?”
Fran: “I can, it depends on how, it very much depends on
how I’m feeling”
REAPPRAISAL

28. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
Seeing things differently
Maggie: “I am being a lot more logical [about shopping and
buying things], and a lot more, I’m thinking long and hard
about actually going. Do I really want to go? I’m thinking how
I’m going to feel afterwards. I’m not actually feeling, when I
think about it, I don’t actually think about the buzz you get, the
positive side, I’m thinking about the negative sides more now.
Things like, I’ll think “oh, I know I’m never going to wear it”, or
“where am I going to put it, I’ve got too much”. I’m thinking
about “do I want more polythene bags at home? Have I got
enough hangers for it?” Yea, I really am thinking sort of
negative, and the thing, when you come, when you bring your
purchases home, you know, it doesn’t stop when you buy
something, you’ve got to sort it out when you get home,
you’ve got to start clearing things out and having sort-outs
again, ‘cause you can’t keep it all. (...) I have noticed that,
quite profoundly really.”

29. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
Fran: “all my heightened awareness that, it’s made
How different
me more aware really of how I look, and I haven’t got
understanding is
to a stage where I can accept and just be how I am.
achieved
I’m trying, I keep trying and thinking “well, this is how I
am now, I’m not going to suddenly loose a stone by
Fran: “that’s one of the very tomorrow”, I do try to sort of talk to myself about it, but
useful things I think is that not very successfully.”
thing that she, that labelling
your thoughts. So if I get, if I Fran: “Well I suppose it, before I just get, I wouldn’t
find myself getting swept even think about, I’d be so swept along with it, I
along, I try to step back and wouldn’t know, and get caught up. I think it makes
then think “oh that was a me stop a bit and see, I don’t know, so that you can’t
planning” I do an awful lot of build on all the thoughts, ‘cause if you have one
planning thoughts, or “that thought, if you label it, it sort of almost is contained,
was an anxious thought”” isn’t it? Whereas if you don’t label it, you get that
thought and another one and another one and so they
go on. Whereas if you think “well, OK, I’ve
acknowledged that thought and I’ve labelled it, it’s
there and contained”

30. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
So that’s how I think and
I am not my thoughts
feel!
Seeing things differently Stay here; no need to
run away
How different
understanding is I feel better!
achieved

31. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
I am not my thoughts
June: “it’s not really me, it doesn’t have to affect me”
Fran: “I can still think about things, but step back a bit, so you
can almost watch your thoughts can’t you, go by, but not
necessarily have to get so swept along by them”
DECENTRING (less identified)
Fran: “it’s just felt calmer, the actual decision [regarding a
work promotion], but maybe that’s because I was clearer
about where I’m at with myself.”
June: “I think I’m more positive, and stronger I think, you
know, stronger as a person”
STRENGTHENED / REIFIED sense of self

32. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
Stay here; no need to
run away
Fran: “the bits to begin with I found really hard were when she
asked us to focus on thoughts, and that bit, at that point I
could feel myself coming out in a sweat, and just wanted to
get up and leave the room. (...) I could feel myself fidgeting, “I
can’t, when will this be over, I’ve got to get out”.
(...)
A: “So what did you actually do? Did you stay in the
room?”
Fran: “I stayed, no I stayed. (...) I kept, I mean she sort of
said “well, you are free to go out if you want to”, but didn’t.”
June: “so I think to myself, if I wore it a few more times then
that memory would fade anyway”
EXPOSURE

33. Choice Over Thoughts
and Feelings
I feel better!
June: “And I’ve noticed with this course, I’m beginning to feel
more like I did say when I was twenty, I never worried about
the past, I never beat myself up (...) And you do feel that kind
of child-like simplicity again”

34. Resisting Temptation
Nicole: “I don’t feel as much on autopilot no, I feel more
aware”
Ethan: “So there’s still a want to spend, but less “oh, I like
that, I’ll buy it”. ‘Cause like I can get the pleasure from “oh I
like that” without having to do the till bit.”
June: “when it came to buying that cream I was sort of on a
high thinking “oh well, I’m managing my debt and I’m
controlling everything, so it won’t matter if I buy that”.”
Maggie: I have been very, very aware that I have finished
work, and for quite a few weeks, I’ve finished work and I’ve
had this (...) tremendous desire to go shopping. (...) And I
have actually thought to myself “why do I want to go
shopping?” and have actually sort of processed it. (...) And
I’ve thought “I don’t need anything”, and I had to really fight
myself to drive myself home. (...) And I came home, as soon
as I’m home it’s fine ‘cause I can find other things that, to do.”

35. Resisting Temptation
June: “when he left that I was so relieved I thought “I need to do
something for myself”, and so I went to the beauty salon and I had a
body wrap and a facial, that was expensive, but I mean I suppose that
was nice in that it was something for me. But then I started spending
on some clothes, (...) I can only call it a spending spree, I mean, I
must’ve spent two, three hundred pounds.”
June: “I just gave up on the meditation. I felt awful. I just didn’t have
time. I was just so tired when I got to bed at night, I just gave it up,
and I know that’s why, you know, I had no resources when they’d gone
to start being realistic and, you know, be mindful, which is why I went
off the tracks.”
June: “So anyway, when I’d taken them, bought these things back, I
thought you know, “I’ve got to get back on this programme”. (...) And in
the past week I started again on the programme. I started doing the
body scan like we started off before (...) [and] since I started back on
the body scan I know I’m much more positive again. (...) It’s amazing
how that works because you have to concentrate, not give in to all
these wandering thoughts all the time, this constant bombardment.”

36. Summary
• Learning mindfulness has helped these
compulsive buyers:
• Reduction to factors driving / sustaining the buying
behaviour (affective and symbolic)
• Increased awareness and ability to manage urges
• Choice over thoughts, reactions, behaviours
• Self-regulation

37. Mindfulness and
Consumerism/Sustainability
Self-focussed awareness
Mindfulness and
Consumerism/
Sustainability

38. Mindfulness and
Consumerism/Sustainability
Steph: “(I think that) if I’m going binge on chocolate, it should
be ethical chocolate that I’m binging on (laugh). I think (the
desire to buy ethical products has) enhanced thinking about it
because it all comes down to a realisation I had quite near the
end of the course, which is that, this kind of wanting to respect
the world and the people in it, is something that I’ve had for
ages, but it’s very hard to have that sort of relationship with
everything around me, if I don’t have the relationship with
myself. And (I) go back to this whole having built up more of a
relationship with myself thing, then I’m now finding it easier to
open that up to the world around me and the people that I’m
interacting with”

39. Mindfulness and
Consumerism/Sustainability
Mindfulness Self-focussed awareness
Mindfulness and
Consumerism
Consumerism/
Sustainability
Breaking cycles Acceptance

40. ESRC Research Group on
lifestyles, values and environment
alison@presentminds.org
www.presentminds.org
0777-606-1670