cognitive approach to shopping

• initiation

  -relief from boredom

  -common with online shopping

  -those with psychological problems and a lack of self esteem can use shopping to self medicate.
• maintenance

  -reduction of anxiety associated with spending

  -they experience anxiety when they consider the true consequence of their addiction

  -the anxiety can be relieved by behaviours that disguise the shopper's reality e.g hiding bank statements

  -many addicted shoppers continue to reduce boredom and instead experience the buzz of shopping
• relapse

  -an addicted shopper may return to their addictive behaviours as withdrawal symptoms can cause a lack of excitement

  -the person may experience increased anxiety of getting into increasing debt so they return to shopping to reduce the anxieties they have.
• eval

  + research to support the role of early trauma in a shopping addiction - found that children who experienced family dysfunction in their childhood were more likely to be an addicted shopper
• eval

  + evidence to link compulsive shopping with mental disorders - BLACK found that between 41-80% of compulsive shoppers have an anxiety disorder - suggesting that the self medication model is right in claiming that addictions can arise because of mental disorders.
• eval

  -the self medication model ignores the role of non-cognitive factors.
• eval

  -the nature of the links between compulsive shopping and other factors are unclear. - the research needs to establish a cause and effect relationship instead of predicting that it causes a shopping addiction