Ayana Griffin:
Influential Factors Contributing to College Student Spending Habits and Credit Card Debt
This literature review discusses reasons why college students have unique spending habits and often accumulate debt. Easy access to credit cards, lack of education before college on financial wellbeing, and normalization of debt all make college students susceptible to accumulating debt. The review also claims that gender, academic performance, family income and financial aid are related to the likelihood of a student having debt. These findings are important because it demonstrates how widespread credit card debt is among this population and points to possible areas to look into for interventions (such as making financial education more accessible). It also suggests that some people are more at risk for impulse shopping than others, indicating the need for targeted interventions that address varying levels of financial vulnerability.
“84% of college students have a credit card, and the average number of cards that are possessed is 4.6”
Determinants of Money Management Behavior
This study aimed to explore psychological factors relating to college students’ ability to maintain a budget in response to the growing number of students in debt. The study identified 9 variables, such as normative influence, perceived barriers, and perceived control, that determined attitudes toward maintaining a budget. The paper recommends interventions that show people that budgeting is effective and puts them in control, and ones that have an emotional appeal (showing positive emotions associated with good financial management). These findings are important as they show that there are psychological factors associated with likelihood of maintaining a budget. So, when building interventions, we can be informed by these factors. For example, we could focus on motivation and reassurance based on the finding that someone’s perceived ability to keep a budget is linked to their likelihood to try and follow one.
Ariane Lee:
Impulse Buying: Design Practices and Consumer Needs
The study found that e-commerce sites contained multiple features that encourage impulsive buying, including those that lower perceived risks, leverage social influence, and enhance perceived proximity to the product. At the same time, the study found that online impulse buyers want tools that (a) encourage deliberation and avoidance, (b) enforce spending limits and postponement, (c) increase checkout effort, (d) make costs more salient, and (e) reduce product desire. These findings inform the design of “friction” technologies that help users make more deliberative consumer choices.
Wait, Let’s Think about Your Purchase Again: A Study on Interventions for Supporting Self-Controlled Online Purchases
In this study, the researchers develop 4 interventions that can assist consumers in controlling their online purchase habits, including Reflection, Distraction, Desire Reduction, and Salient Cost. They evaluated their methods on 107 participants in a user study on a real-world e-commerce site, and results indicated that all interventions were effective in reducing impulse buying urges, with variations in user experiences. This implies an application that is informed by all of these methods could be effective with compounding effects.
Nicholas Bui:
This study identifies three aspects associated with self control (monitoring, ego depletion, and goals conflict) and places them in the context of impulse buying to determine how these factors affect the likelihood of this behavior.
Game on: curbing impulse buying and returns in apparel e‑tailers
This study explores the effectiveness of gamified strategies in addressing impulsive e-buying behaviors and mitigating subsequent product returns. The findings indicate that gamified distraction strategies are more effective than substitution strategies in reversing impulse e-buying behavior.
Thanh Tieu:
Impulse buying behaviour: an online-offline comparative and the impact of social media
The study examines differences in impulsive buying behaviors across online and offline environments and explores how social media influences these behaviors. It highlights that online platforms, particularly social media, amplify impulsive buying due to ease of access, targeted advertising, and immediate purchase options. Offline environments, while less convenient, rely more on sensory experiences and in-store promotions to drive impulsivity. Social media plays a significant role by combining emotional triggers, peer influence, and personalized ads to create a seamless and compelling buying experience, reshaping traditional impulsive buying patterns.
Rein it in. Nudge-based interventions to cope with online impulse buying among young adults
Starting from an outline of the core factors that typify impulse purchasing, the paper introduces three different interventions in the form of nudges, namely designing for the interactional friction, engaging in distraction, and the timely provision of feedback
