Exploring the Impact of Consumer Impulsiveness on Cognitive Dissonance: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Impulsive buying is a common phenomenon in consumer behavior and previous studies found that it has a direct bond with cognitive dissonance. However, the nature of the relationship could not be generalized to each circumstance. In this study, researchers viewed this issue by investigating degree of cognitive dissonance in impulsive purchasing and planned buying and assessed the impact of consumer impulsiveness on cognitive dissonance by paying special attention to the mode of payment. The study was conducted among randomly selected 345 customers who made both planned and impulse purchasing from three main supercenters and two fashion houses located in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Questionnaires were designed based on scales that were already validated in the previous studies. The reliability of scales was measured by Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients. The paired samples t test, multiple regression analysis and independent sample t test were used for the data analysis and testing hypotheses.