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The Dark Side of Consumer Behavior

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The Dark Side of Consumer Behavior

In most cases, consumers have been observed to the worst enemies to themselves in our

current market setting. Their undesirable negative actions in our markets today are mainly from

their daily choices and desires. Researchers have found out that social pressures are the major

causes of dark consumer behavior. The current culture has developed more appetite and respect

for money through having been exposed to unrealistic dreams, goals and living standards. This

essay will focus on the dark side of consumer behavior discussing their types and possible causes

in the consumer market places.

In a market place, consumers are best regarded as not always rational decision makers.

There are several disorders that are associated with dark consumer behavior. For instance,

consumer addiction can be described as a physiological and psychological dependency on goods,

products and services by the consumers. Consumption in consumers has always a tendency of

becoming an obsession by going to extremes. Another dark behavior in consumption is

compulsive consumption whereby consumers are forced and compelled to shop rather than doing

it because it is an important and pleasurable activity. Their examples include repetitive buying

and excessive buying is always as a from of countering depression, anxiety and stress. They use

shopping the same way other addicted people who use alcohol, gambling and smoking to

substitute and emotional or physiological void as a temporary fix to the problem over and over

again whenever they feel like (Micu & Ashley., 2021).

Compulsive consumption is more of a long-lasting disorder that lasts longer than the

temporary impulsive shopping. There is so little control on consumption under that case. There is

spread of consequences that are damaging to themselves and those near them, so little control

can be exercised on controlling the compulsive consumption behavior. It is treated by therapy.

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Another form of dark consumer behavior is conspicuous consumption which can be simply

described in simple terms as an extent to which a given person tends to reach or achieve

shopping for the main purpose of displaying it to others. Researchers in the consumers’ market

field space have found out that women are more susceptible to this kind of disorder than men.

Another one is status consumption which is a degree at which consumers are willing to go as afar

as buying goods and services in order to display their respective social statuses (Micu & Ashley.,

2021).

Another form of dark side consumer behavior is consumer ethnocentrism. Consumer

ethnocentrism refers to the consumers that have a predisposition of rejecting and not using goods

and services that are not manufactured from their own ethnic countries. This are consumers who

are dedicated on being advocates and champions of only buying and using products and services

from their ethnic groups. Another form of dark consumer behavior is consumer materialism.

Consumer materialism is simply a trait in people lives that differentiates those that considers

materials and possessions in their lives as important from the consumers that regard them not

much important but just as secondary needs of their happiness in their lives. From the conducted

studies and researches, it is evident that materialistic people tend to value acquiring more things,

they are self-centered and eccentric and selfish (White et al., 2020).
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Reference

Micu, P. D., & Ashley, C. (2021). Territorial consumer behaviors on social media: a dark side of

psychological ownership. Journal of Consumer Marketing.

https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-02-2020-3642

White, K., Habib, R., & Dahl, D. W. (2020). A review and framework for thinking about the

drivers of prosocial consumer behavior. Journal of the Association for Consumer

Research, 5(1), 2-18. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/706782