Abstract:
In 21st century, impulsive buying is increasing drastically specially in young
adults. The key factors involved are materialistic values, influence from social media and
fear of missing out. The main objective was to explore the correlation between social
media influence, materialism, and fear of missing out with impulsive buying, identify
their predictive roles, and examine gender differences in young adults. It was
hypothesized that social media influence, materialism, and fear of missing out were
positively correlated to impulsive buying. Furthermore, social media influence was likely
to entrench materialistic orientations but at the same time eliminate the fear of missing
out. The gender-based differences would be expected also on all the study constructs and
collectively, the above psychosocial variables are attributed to be prime predictors of
impulsive buying behavior. This dissertation, based on Social Comparison Theory and
Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, will pursue the relationships discussed on
a quantitative, cross-sectional survey design. A sample of 373 young adults aged 18-25
were recruited and data will be gathered based on the measures such as Demographics,
Social Media Affinity Scale, Material Values Scale, the Fear of Missing Out Scale, and
the Impulsive Buying Tendency Scale. SPSS version 27 was used for analysis.
Correlation and regression methods of analysis would be used to analyze relationships
between the variables. It was found that social media influence positively correlate with
materialism and impulsive buying behavior and the impulsive buying behavior also had
strong connections with materialism. Fear of missing out displayed valuable connection
over an impulsive purchase and had sophisticated correlations with both social media and
materialism. The regression analysis further revealed that the influence of social media
and having fear of missing out built a significant predictability of buying impulsively since of the three constructs of materialism, only a dimension of materialism appeared
significant. This study focused on an under-researched population group in a developing
economy and will help to enhance the literature on digital consumers across the world
and its social-cultural impacts.
