Reducing consumer impulsive buying through emotional intelligence training

The consequences of compulsive buying include various social and psychological ills that affect not only the person exhibiting such behaviour (e.g., lower wellbeing, more frequent interpersonal conflicts due to uncontrolled behaviour, financial problems, etc.) but also the world in general: excessive consumption leads to more landfills, higher energy use and carbon emissions into the atmosphere (e.g., Rodrigues, Lopes, & Miguel Varela, 2021[2] and others). Following this, a question arises: are there ways to influence an individual’s thinking, attitudes, and behaviour to reduce excessive buying. Some research suggests that personalities with higher emotional intelligence are less likely to succumb to impulsive buying behaviour (Tariq, Ali Bhatti, Khan, & Qadir, 2021 [4] and others). Emotional intelligence is defined as a set of abilities that help to cope with various emotional information (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) [1] and, in relation to impulsive purchases, to help an individual cope with emerging negative emotions and feelings and choose a more thoughtful course of action. The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis: consumers trained in emotional abilities will exhibit significantly lower level of impulsive buying than those in a control group. An experimental study was conducted among students from Lithuanian Universities. As many as 67 students volunteered to take part in the quasiexperiment online. Firstly, students were asked to complete the initial screening questionnaire to determine their inclinations to impulsive buying and their emotional intelligence. Compulsive buying was measured using Valence et al. (1988) scale [5]; the emotional intelligence scale we used is the Schutte et al. (1998) [3]. The final sample consisted of 36 participants. The respondents’ age ranged from 18 to 32, with the average age being 22.86 (SD = 3.22). The research was conducted fully online. The quasi-experimental design has been adopted with the independent variable being emotional intelligence and the dependent variable being impulsive buying. The participants were divided into two groups: intervention and control. The intervention group was (n = 18) randomly assigned and participated in an emotional intelligence development programme. The programme has been developed by psychology researchers of this study. The design of the current intervention included discussion, examples, paired exercises, emotion diaries, readings, reflection, and feedback. Those methods helped to understand and manage one’s own and others’ emotions. Control group (n = 18) did not participate in the training programme. The comparability of both groups is very important for experimental research, thus we have checked the difference between the experiment and control group and found that these two groups did not differ from each other with respect to their gender and age: t(35) = 17.75, p < 0.001. Results of the independent samples t-test showed that participants in the training-based emotional intelligence intervention group reported a significantly higher level of emotional intelligence (N = 18, M = 3.66, SD = 0.26) than participants in the control group (N = 18, M = 3.22, SD = 0.35), t(34) = 4.203, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.31, which indicates that the training-based emotional intelligence intervention was successful. Moreover, results of the independent samples t-test showed that participants in the training-based EI interventions group reported significantly lower level of impulsive buying (N = 18, M = 2.09, SD = 0.50) than participants in the control group (N = 18, M = 2.63, SD = 0.67), t(34) = -2.722, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.59. These results indicate that the trainingbased emotional intelligence intervention was successful and support the hypothesis, which postulates that respondents who participate in the training-based EI intervention will have lower level of compulsive buying than those in a control group. A number of limitations must be acknowledged. The first limitation denotes the small sample size of our study. The second limitation is associated with the specifics of the sample of the subjects, namely, university students; thus, the study results could not be generalised for other population groups. In summary, the research revealed that emotional intelligence training programmes could effectively reduce consumer impulsive buying. Interventions, along with elements of psychoeducation, can be used to raise consumer awareness and to educate more sustainable behaviour. This finding may be helpful for professionals working with individuals who have difficulty with impulsive purchasing and other associated risks.