9 Chapter 1 We probably all recognize the feeling of suddenly wanting to buy an item. Whether it is a comfortable pair of jeans, a delicious lemon meringue tart, or a stylish leather belt, the impulse to obtain such items can be strong. Impulse buying can be defined as unplanned behavior, accompanied with a strong sudden urge to buy (e.g., Rook, 1987; Beatty & Ferrell, 1998; Amos et al., 2014). Precisely how much is spent on impulse purchases is unclear. However, there seems to be scientific consensus that in capitalist societies such behavior is frequent. For example, Iyer et al. (2020) state that consumers impulsively spend up to $450 a month on such purchases (also see Kacen et al., 2012). Due to its magnitude, impulse buying carries significant consequences for various stakeholders. Therefore, it is interesting to know what affects these purchases. Academic consensus maintains that impulse buying can be affected by media cues (e.g., Adelaar et al., 2010; Baker Qureshi, Murtaza, & Kazi, 2019; Sharifi et al., 2023). At least three contemporary societal developments have brought forward new types of media cues that could be relevant to modernday impulse buying, but due to their novelty, these have been understudied. First, due to the continuous merging of the physical and digital world, we see an increase in the amount of so-called phygital cues, which are also seen in stores (e.g., Colombo, 2016). Phygital cues are technologies that bridge the digital and physical world, such as interactive screens. A second contemporary societal development is the increasing number of companies that have incorporated corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, which have led to a rising number of CSR advertisement cues that promote a company’s charitable commitments (e.g., Coleman, Royne, & Pounders, 2019). The third development is the growing attention to mindfulness and mindful consumption (i.e., tempering excessive consumption), which has resulted in an increase of mediated mindfulness cues aimed at guiding people to become more mindful (e.g., Sheth, Sethia, & Srinivas, 2011). In the present dissertation we substantiate and measure how these three contemporary media cues (phygital cues, CSR advertisement cues, mediated mindfulness cues) may influence impulse buying urges and behavior. Urges refer to the sudden, persistent desire for an item and the tendency to buy, while impulse buying behavior refers to the actual act of buying impulsively. Moreover, in this dissertation we will also focus on how media cues affect impulse buying, by studying the self-inference processes preceding the urge to buy on impulse. Self-inference processes refer to the internal mechanisms individuals employ to make judgments about themselves (Olson & Hafer, 2013) and can, arguably, affect impulse buying. Self-inference processes relevant to impulse buying are not yet fully understood, while they hold the potential to offer important insights into the phenomenon of impulse buying (Pham et al., 2017).
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