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The main purpose of this research is to evaluate Gluttony's role in consumers' compulsive buying behaviour. Specifically, the authors want to identify the main psychological antecedents of the construct (expressed with the Big Five) and the moderating effects of shopping motives (in the two dimensions hedonism and utilitarianism).

The hypotheses were tested by applying survey data from 335 participants to a mediation model with a moderator.

The results show that consciousness adversely affects gluttony, while neuroticism has a positive impact on it. Gluttony, in turn, mediates the relationship between these personality traits and compulsive buying behaviour. Finally, contrary to what might be expected, only utilitarianism accentuates the effect of gluttony on compulsive buying behaviour.

Using these results, managers and policymakers can create more effective strategies for their commercial or awareness initiatives.

This study clarifies the role of gluttony in consumer behaviour by identifying the underlying personality traits.

This paper aims to use social network analysis (SNA) to determine whether compulsive exercise (CE) was related to social connections and network position among participants of group-exercise programs.

Members from two group-exercise programs (Gym 1: n = 103; Gym 2: n = 56) completed an online survey measuring their social connections within the program, CE, depressive symptoms and sense of belonging. Network position was calculated for each person based on network centrality scores (i.e. closeness, eigenvector centrality). Linear network autocorrelation models determined whether respondents reported similar CE as their network ties (i.e., network effects) and whether network position was related to CE in these networks.

Eigenvector centrality (i.e., being connected to popular/important people within the network; Gym 1: parameter estimate [PE] = 0.51, p < 0.01, Gym 2: PE = 0.39, p = 0.02) and network effects (i.e. having similar CE scores as direct network ties; Gym 1: PE = 0.07, p < 0.01, Gym 2: PE = 0.19, p < 0.01) were related to CE among participants in these programs.

This study builds on existing SNA research suggesting the importance of social connections and network position on CE, and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first to explore these effects among group-exercise participants. This study describes how the social environment can impact, both positively and negatively, someone’s susceptibility for CE and supports fostering social connections within group-exercise programs as a way to potentially combat harmful CE among its participants.

Purpose and methodology – Many adult women struggle with serious eating problems (EPs) and obesity is increasing, yet, little is known about the origins of EPs, which often begin in childhood. Personal Narratives with 25 Israeli Jewish women in recovery from EPs explore (a) types of childhood experiences, (b) the connection between childhood experiences and subsequent EPs, and (c) why food!

Findings a.Analyses of personal narratives uncover a broad range of emotionally abusive experiences in childhood (CEA) including continuous criticism about body shape and weight, emotional neglect and abandonment, death or illness in the family in the absence of a nurturing adult, conflict and tension surrounding parental divorce or dysfunctional marriage, geographic dislocation, and aftermath of the Holocaust.b.Interviewees explicitly identified CEA as the cause of their turning to food for comfort in childhood and subsequently developing lifelong EPs.c.Why food! It was easily accessible, its sweetness took away the pain - temporarily, children replicated parents' unhealthy relationship with food, it was abundant and central in Jewish cultural, ethnic and religious traditions.

Research Implications – This research documents the critical contribution of emotionally abusive experiences in childhood to the development of EPs and confirms the need for additional research.

Practical Implications – The findings warrant a shift in policies and practices to address the role of emotional abuse in the development and maintenance of EPs. Moreover, policies focused on obesity, particularly among youth, need to recognize the contribution of CEA – in addition to poor dietary choices and lack of exercise.

Given the limited literature on depression as a contributing factor to compulsive social media use, the present research examines the role of perceived depressive mood (PDM) in developing compulsive social media use behavior. The authors also identify and hypothesize channels such as contingent self-esteem (CSE), social interaction anxiety (SIA) and fear of negative evaluation (FNE), which may explain how PDM affects compulsive social media use.

The research model was empirically tested with a survey of 367 Chinese university students using structural equation modeling by drawing on the escape and self-presentation lenses.

The findings indicate that PDM contributes to compulsive social media use behavior both directly and indirectly through CSE. Furthermore, the impact of CSE on compulsive social media use is mediated by the FNE, whereas SIA fails to mediate this effect.

The results can advance the authors’ knowledge of the role and process by which depressive mood impacts compulsive social media use. These findings may add insights into psychological treatment and help in, for example, developing counseling programs or coping strategies for depressed people to protect them from using social media excessively.

This research identifies the pathway mechanism between PDM and compulsive use of social media. It also increases the understanding of how CSE and social interaction deficiencies contribute to compulsive social media usage (CSMU).

The purpose of this study is to re-examine the characteristics of compulsive buying behaviour (CBB) based on a new improved screener. The study analyses young compulsive buyer attitudes, decision-making, product preferences, the impact of credit card use and post-purchase perspectives in relation to CBB severity.

The study takes a quantitative approach to the analysis of compulsive behaviour among young consumers, using data from a questionnaire survey and a large sample. A wide range of statistical procedures and structural equation modelling are used in the analysis.

The segmentation of compulsive buyers, on the basis of disorder severity, provides important insights into the asymmetrical between-group variation in anxiety levels, product preferences, feelings, attitudes and credit card impact and the within-group variability in daily compulsivity patterns and associated shopping behaviour.

Although the overall used sample size is large, the subdivision of compulsive consumers into mild and severe categories resulted in a relatively small group of severely compulsive buyers; hence, further research is recommended to corroborate the findings from this study. In addition, this research does not address the disorder’s temporal dimension; therefore, future longitudinal studies should be undertaken to analyse the progression and characteristics of the disorder over time.

The significant differences between mild compulsive buyers and severely compulsive buyers make a significant contribution to counselling practitioners because of the different levels of support that should be offered in relation to the severity of the condition.

The study compares non-compulsive behaviour with occasionally compulsive, mildly compulsive and severely compulsive consumers using an improved screening tool. It identifies critical criteria that distinguish between mild and severe forms of the disorder, which have hitherto been neglected, yet represent key diagnostic and predictive factors, which can inform both early intervention and our understanding of CBB and its complexity.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the nature of the coverage of health issues in magazines, and specifically to compare the coverage in men's and women's magazines Content analysis was used to examine the health information in the six upmarket magazines (Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, GQ, Marie‐Claire, and Maxim) selected for the study, with a wide range of criteria used to analyse the health information contained in them. Interviews with four of the health editors from the sample were conducted in order to elucidate some of the main findings. Unexpectedly, the differences in health information coverage are greater between the individual magazines than between the total women's and men's groups. Overall, men's magazines appear to treat health information in a more informative manner than women's, although both groups provide unusually high levels of information required to change their readers health behaviour. With this level of information provision it is noteworthy that many of these magazines have no clear health information policy, and that their editors have no qualifications or training in either health or science.

I was recently asked to see a woman suffering from compulsive eating, a problem of sufficient severity to warrant admission to a mental hospital. Frequently the clinical psychologist learns a great deal about normal behaviour by studying the abnormal and Mrs. M's irresistible compulsion to eat was no exception. In brief, her eating tended to be triggered, or at least strongly influenced, by food and mood cues rather than hunger pangs and eating plans. She could not sit in a room with a bar of chocolate for any length of time without devouring it whole, and she could only rarely eat one Black Magic without consuming the whole box. In common with the obsessive‐compulsive, the alcoholic, smoker and compulsive gambler, she found that in certain moods and when exposed to certain cues she had little or no control over her behaviour and was compelled to relinquish her long‐term goals in favour of short‐term gratification. The severity of Mrs. M's compulsive urges demonstrated, in exaggerated form, the loss of control phenomenon which is experienced by every struggling slimmer and is a regrettable feature of the human predicament.

Episodes of compulsive eating may lead to addiction. Changing relative prices does not always work for many food addicts turned overweight or obese individuals. This paper points to when such situations may arise and how they can be remedied.

We modify the standard neoclassical economics model assumption of indifference curves being convex to the origin. It becomes violated in situations when compulsive eaters become food addicts. As a result of that, the assumption of the concave (quasi-concave) utility function is violated too. We also introduce the possibility that compulsive eaters may have stable but nonconstant preferences.

Most important finding of our model is that a smooth dynamic path to addiction, caused by habit, disappears. Hence, the ability for smooth adjustment to relative price changes due to policies targeting obesity may not be applicable for a compulsive addict. We postulate the existence of thresholds past in which irreversible harm to addicted overeaters may occur. Reaching such states implies that no economic tools at our disposal could reverse the harm, which, in turn, deem that many policies directed at altering relative prices are ineffective in correcting overeating addiction and its consequences.

Even if we believe in consumer sovereignty, it is possible to shape consumer behavior via policy actions, including the behavior of extremum seekers turned addicts. The public policy of obesity should consider, in this case, its social cost.

No prior research has considered food addiction in light of compulsive eating caused by extremum-seeking behavior. Addiction correcting food policies always relied on either rational or myopic addiction models.

To examine the exercise experiences of women with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in order to highlight the complex relationship between mental illness and physical activity, as it intersects with other identities and social locations (e.g., gender and sexuality) as well as other mental health conditions (e.g., eating disorders and exercise addiction).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 women who self-identify as having OCD. A thematic analysis was conducted to understand the role of physical activity in the participants’ lives.

The participants experience holistic benefits from being physically active. At the same time, however, their symptoms of OCD and related disorders (e.g., eating disorders) make it challenging to be physically active in meaningful and healthy ways.

Public health messages promoting exercise as a form of therapy must take into account the complex relationship between physical activity and mental illness. Additional research and programing is also needed in order to help women with mental health issues be physically active in safe and enjoyable ways.