September 22, 2008
compulsive buying
A new test rates a person’s propensity for compulsive shopping.
The new test includes six statements, for which individuals answer on a 7-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree:
My closet has unopened shopping bags in it.
Others might consider me a “shopaholic.”
Much of my life centers around buying things.
I buy things I don’t need.
I buy things I did not plan to buy.
I consider myself an impulse purchaser.Respondents who score 25 or higher would be considered compulsive buyers.
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My old job had me scanning academic journal articles for hours a day, and it was pretty interesting to see the amount of work that went into developing a simplistic test like this. The questions elicit an immediate “well, duh!” reaction, but I can imagine the forest of regression analyses used to confirm their value, and the dozens of other possible questions (“Mall smell gives me wood.”) that didn’t pan out.