Introduction

Young consumer’s behavior, is a constant rate of interest by marketers in order to provide them producís and services that meet their needs and desires²-³-⁴’⁵; this group is part of the millennials generation which term is used to define at those born between 1977 and 1994⁶. They are a profitable segment of potential consumers that are consistent in their consumption experiences and can be caught with the same marketing offers⁷’⁸. It is a generation that has grown within a society driven by consumption, have more access to credit, buying channels, digital television, mobile devices and the Internet⁹; it has been found that the members of this generation are big spenders and impulsive due to social pressure¹⁰, many times considering their way of buying as compulsive.

Compulsive shopping is an apparently intentional and repetitive behavior that is carried out in accordance with rules or in a stereotypical manner¹¹. Acquire significant amount of product that are not needed often cannot afford is a characteristic of shopping addiction¹². This anxiety is manifested through an impulse followed by emotional excitement that causes spontaneity and encourages to reduce tension through compulsive buying¹³; therefore, it is said that the main motivation of a buyer, to show a compulsive buying behavior, is to escape anxiety, relieve stress and finally feel happy¹⁴; it has also been suggested that the anxiety experienced by the person can be both a cause and effect of compulsive buying¹⁵ Valence, d'Astous & Fortier suggest two main groups of factors that can cause in the person a compulsive buying for anxiety: a) the social factors: culture, commercial environment, communication and publicity that stress on materialistic ideals; and b) the individual factors: strong emotional activation ((increase in psychological tension), a high cognitive control (an acknowledgement that buying will reduce the tension) and a high reactivity (looking for tension reduction, rather than ownership)¹⁶.

From this perspective, these authors¹⁶ constructed several scales to diagnose and analyze compulsive buying behavior; the first scale proposed has its bases in the conceptual perspective¹⁷, the scale considered four dimensions: the first dimension was identified as "tendency to spend" and implies that a compulsive buyer should exhibit a higher propensity to spend than a non-compulsive buyer; the second dimension, "reactive aspect", dealt with the individual's response to strong urges to purchase. So, an individual exhibiting compulsive buying behavior might feel that the motivations or urges to purchase are irresistible or beyond their control, while non-compulsive buyers would not view such motivations to purchase as uncontrollable; the third dimension is associated with the post-purchase guilt; finally, a fourth dimension refers the family environment. However, in the final version of the scale, this dimension was dropped because of poor internal consistency. The Valence et al. scale has been used in several studies which exhibited a Cronbach's alpha between .78 and .92, these levels suggest that the scale strongly taps into a motivational construct related to compulsive buying.

The scale of compulsive shopping of Valence, d'Astous & Fortier¹⁶ uses 16 items and has been widely used in the literature for the measurement of this tendency, we have as an example the studies where the scales were used to measure the compulsive buying tendency in the population of Vizcaya¹⁸, the research relating compulsive shopping with personal values¹⁹; the study of factors influencing compulsive buying behavior in young people²⁰, research on buying behavior by impulse in the marketing activities of sport products²¹;the analysis of the relationships of personality traits with impulse and compulsive purchase²² and the Analysis of the purchase behavior of the maximizer versus the satisfactory²³.

Reviewing the literature in Mexico, studies on compulsive shopping among inhabitants of Mexico City stand out²⁴; buying behavior to identify compulsive buyers in Saltillo, Coahuila²⁵, in both studies a difference between genders was found, being women who show a greater tendency toward compulsive buying; at the same, it emphasizes the study of compulsive buying behavior in which it was found that between 1.1% and 5.9% of the Mexican population have compulsive buying problems, this behavior being more common in female²⁶.

Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze the purchasing behavior of university students in Mexico and determine if there are differences by sex that show the behavior presented is considered compulsive, following the model of Valence, d’Astous and Fortier.

Materials and methods

A descriptive and exploratory study was carried out with transversal measurement, not experimental and explanatory because it confirms the structure of the compulsive purchasing scale of Valence, d’Astous and Fortier in their factors: tendency to spend (5 items), urgency to buy (6 items), and post-purchase guilt¹³ (5 items), it was applied a sample universe of 1,687 young people from 17 to 24 years old, from public universities in 27 states in the Mexican Republic; 60% women and 40% men, the data collection was carried out online with the ¹SurveyMonkey software using a 16-item questionnaire, on a 1-5 Likert scale, the SPSS v.24 package was also used for the statistical analysis of the Pearson’s Chi-square test. In relation to the findings on the investigations already carried out in Mexico, in which women are susceptible to compulsive buying, we want to prove if at the national level the young female university students who belong to the Millennials generation they also show a higher tendency towards compulsive buying compared to the male; hence the following hypotheses emerge:H₁ Mexican female university students who belong to the Millennial generation show a greater "tendency to spend" than male students. H2 Mexican female university students who belong to the millennial generation show a greater "urgency to buy" than male students. H3 Mexican female university students who belong to the millennial generation show a greater "sense of guilt" that male students with respect to the economic impact suffered by excessive buying.

The table 1shows the definition and implementation of all the variables considered in each of the three constructs that represent the measuring instrument; also, the objective of each construct is defined, and its associated items.

Table 1 Operationalization of variables. 

Source: Own elaboration.

Results

To check the validity and reliability of the instrument applied in this research, we estimated the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient²⁸; obtaining a result of 0,775 for each scale of each factor and it was verified that they were greater tan 7. The results obtained are presented by construct to identify the existence of compulsive buyers.

The systematization of the information was carried out in the SPSS program version 24^®; the first stage of the univariate analysis of the categorical variables and the magnitude of them was carried out by means of the distribution of absolute and relative frequencies; to determine the statistical significance of the bivariate analysis p = <0.05, the Pearson’s Chi-square test was applied, established from the characteristics of the categorical variables (ordinal and nominal).

To accept or reject the first hypothesis: H1 Mexican female university students who belong to the Millennial generation show a greater "tendency to spend" than male students, the results are showed inFigure 1.

Source: Own elaboration

Figura 1 Tendency to spend 

According to the results shown in figure 1, the 40.35% of women are "agree" and "totally agree" in considering themselves with "tendency to spend", in the case of men, the result is 34.8% in this category; to do in this construct the Pearson’s Chi-square test, it was obtained as a result 7 squares (16.7%) with a lower count than 5, the expected minimum count was 1.62; therefore, the hypothesis is accepted because significant differences are found, being women who frequently identify themselves with the "tendency to spend".

To accept or reject the second hypothesis: Mexican female university students who belong to the millennial generation show a greater "urgency to buy" than male students, the results are presented inFigure 2.

Source: Own elaboration

Figura 2 Urgency to buy 

According to the results shown in figure 2, the 20.49% of women are "agree" and "strongly agree" in considering themselves with "urgency of buying", in the case of men the result was 19.74%, it is observed that there is a little significant difference between both genders. When submitting this construct to the Pearson’s Chi-square test, it was observed that 103 squares (39.9%) obtained a count less than 5, the minimum expected count was .41; therefore, the second hypothesis is rejected since the difference is not significant between men and women in terms of the "Urgency of buying".

In order to accept or reject the third hypothesis: Mexican female university students who belong to the millennial generation show a greater "sense of guilt" that male students with respect to the economic impact suffered by excessive buying., the results are presented in Figure 3.

Source: Own elaboration

Figura 3 Sense of guilt 

According to the results shown in Figure 3, the 27.89% of women are "agree" and "strongly agree" to express a "feel of guilt" after making an over-purchase; while the 27.64% of men manifest a similar feeling, no significant differences were found in this construct between both sexes. The following results were obtained by submitting this construct to the Pearson’s Chi-square test, 6 squares (14.3%) report less than 5 counts, the minimum expected count was .81; as a result, the third hypothesis is rejected because the difference between men and women is not significant in terms of feeling of guilt after making an over- purchase.

Discussion

Women in the "tendency to spend" construct present superior results in comparison with men, with regard to the constructs "urgency to buy" and “feeling of guilt "the result obtained from women is very similar to men; consequently not consistent behavior that would determine a compulsory purchase for any segment was found.

This research shows similar results with those presented by the author 25,26,27, who concluded that there is a small compulsive buying in the inhabitants of Mexico City, specially in women; also, the this study shows a significant difference in compulsive behavior between women and men similar to the study carried out in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, being the women with the greatest tendency to compulsivity; finally, it was also found that between 1.1% and 5.9% of the Mexican population have features of compulsive buying, which is more frequent in the female.

Conclusions

The aim of this study was to analyze the purchasing behavior of university students in Mexico and determine if there are differences between sexes that show, according to model of Valence, d'Astous and Fortier, that the reported behavior is considered compulsive; it is concluded that the university students surveyed have a purchasing behavior that can be considered moderately responsible, although women have a higher tendency to compulsive shopping than men in regard to "tendency to spend" and "urgency of buying"; however, on the subject of "feelings of guilt" men are the ones who showed in their responses a higher features of compulsive buyers.

As a final reflection we can point out that the results shown in the research must be very important for companies; it is important to note that the issue of compulsive buying should be considered a health problem and should be a concern, in addition to permanent research topic for universities, authorities and marketing practitioners. Nowadays, thanks to the studies carried out on the subject, those responsible for developing marketing strategies are becoming more aware of how they affect consumer decisions, we should not forget that the members of the millennial generation are the future of the country and the world, and they should have the opportunity to make more responsible consumption, benefit to the current world and future generations.

Finally, it should be noted that the study results cannot be generalized to all university students in Mexico, but the segment of young students of Mexican public universities.