New test diagnoses your shopping addiction
The Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale is a seven-item test to check if your shopping habit is a full-blown shopping addiction.
All items are scored on the following scale: (0) Completely disagree, (1) Disagree, (2) Neither disagree nor agree, (3) Agree, and (4) Completely agree:
- You think about shopping/buying things all the time.
- You shop/buy things in order to change your mood.
- You shop/buy so much that it negatively affects your daily obligations (e.g., school and work).
- You feel you have to shop/buy more and more to obtain the same satisfaction as before.
- You have decided to shop/buy less, but have not been able to do so.
- You feel bad if you for some reason are prevented from shopping/buying things.
- You shop/buy so much that it has impaired your well-being.
Saying “agree” or “completely agree” on at least four of the seven items may suggest that you are a shopping addict.
The scale was developed by Doctor of Psychology and Clinical Psychologist Specialist, Cecilie Schou Andreassen. She is affiliated with Department of Psychosocial Science at UiB, and is currently a visiting scholar at Yale University, School of Medicine, USA.
Doctor Andreassen heads the research project Shopping Addiction at the University of Bergen (UiB). An article about the results has just been published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology – co-authored by American and British researchers from Stanford University, UCLA, and Nottingham Trent University. Doctor Andreassen is first author of the paper.
Her study shows that shopping addiction is predominant in women and started during their late adolescent and emerging adulthood years. The addiction decreases with age but is made easier by social media, credit cards and advanced marketing.
Extroverts and neurotics are more likely to be shopaholics than introverts. Shopping addiction is also linked to anxiety, depression, and is seen as a way to cope with unpleasant feelings.
“Our research indicates that people who score high on extroversion and neuroticism are more at risk of developing shopping addiction. Extroverts, typically being social and sensation seeking, may be using shopping to express their individuality or enhance their social status and personal attractiveness. Neurotic people, who typically are anxious, depressive, and self-conscious, may use shopping as a means of reducing their negative feelings,” Doctor Andreassen says.
People who are conscientious, agreeable, and who like new and intellectual stimuli are less at risk from shopping addiction. These typically have good self-control, avoid the kind of conflicts that problematic shopping often result in, and may regard shopping as a conventional activity at odds with their often unconventional values.
