Compensatory consumption: research reveals emotional challenges behind the habit
Have you ever made an impulsive purchase and regretted it? Have you ever consumed a service that was, in a way, unnecessary? Compensatory drinking is a common practice used by people to cope with feelings of inadequacy or frustration. Therefore, this behavior involves the purchase or consumption of products and services as a way to alleviate the discomfort caused by a discrepancy between who the person is and who they want to be.
The search for social status, emotional relief or a sense of control are some of the motivations behind this type of consumption. Despite this, this consumption can have both positive and negative effects. With this in mind, researchers from the School of Business Administration of São Paulo (FGV EAESP), Gabriela Rauber, Lucia Barros, Felipe Zambaldi and Marcelo Perin published an article in Psychology & Marketing.
Thus, the research is a systematic review of almost 100 articles published between 1997 and 2023, and covers several areas of research on compensatory consumption. The analysis was carried out using the ADO model (antecedents, decisions and results), organizing the findings in a way that allows a broad understanding of the phenomenon. The research used the academic databases EBSCO and Web of Science.
One of the main findings of the study is that compensatory consumption does not occur randomly. It relates to specific strategies that consumers adopt to deal with negative emotions. For example, a person who feels insecure about their social status may buy designer clothes to try to compensate for this perceived gap between their reality and the ideal they want to achieve. This is known as ostentatious consumption, where the goal is to display symbols of success to others.
Another example is compulsive buying, which is often linked to feelings of low self-esteem. Someone who feels inadequate in an area of life, such as work, may end up making frequent and excessive purchases as a way to seek temporary satisfaction. These behaviors are coping strategies that offer immediate relief, but which, in the long run, can lead to negative consequences, such as debt or regret.
The study points out that compensatory consumption can turn into a vicious cycle. While it offers symbolic benefits and emotional relief in the short term, it does not address the root causes of self-discrepancy (that difference between who I am and who I want to be). Behaviors such as ostentatious or compulsive buying, when repeated, can generate harmful long-term consequences, such as indebtedness and remorse.
Compensatory consumption can manifest itself in many ways, whether through the acquisition of luxury goods, travel, or even the use of technologies. For example, a person who feels overwhelmed by technological challenges may purchase an expensive gadget in the hopes of improving their competence in that field, even if that purchase does not solve the perceived difficulty. These behaviors illustrate the complexity and multifactoriality of compensatory consumption.
In addition, the phenomenon has been widely studied in developed countries, especially in the United States. The researchers suggest the need for more research in non-Western contexts to understand the diversity of emotional and cultural responses to compensatory consumption. They also emphasize that future studies should explore not only the antecedents of this behavior, but the impacts and mechanisms that lead to compensatory habits.
