Relationship Between Perceived Stress and Impulsive Buying Behavior in Male and Female Health Care Students

Mamta Saraf; Shruti Sharma; Sri Harish Kumar R; Dauzi Sanaulla Khan; Yashswini Pulgar; Jennifer J; Neha Govindan; Abel Mathew Varghese; Anisha A; Nihareeka Gogoi

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Correlational Study

| Published: April 23, 2025

Relationship Between Perceived Stress and Impulsive Buying Behavior in Male and Female Health Care Students

Mamta Saraf

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Shruti Sharma

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Sri Harish Kumar R

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Dauzi Sanaulla Khan

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Yashswini Pulgar

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Jennifer J

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Neha Govindan

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Abel Mathew Varghese

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Anisha A

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

, Nihareeka Gogoi

Student, M.Sc. clinical psychology, Jain (deemed-to-be) University, Bengaluru Google Scholar More about the auther

DIP: 18.01.064.20251302

DOI: 10.25215/1302.064

ABSTRACT

The study explored the relationship between perceived stress and shopping addiction among 160 healthcare students, comparing male and female participants (N=160). To assess stress, we used the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale (BSAS) was used to measure shopping addiction. The data was collected through Google Forms and evaluated using Pearson’s correlation (r). The findings revealed that there was a weak positive relationship between gender, perceived stress (r = 0.145, p = 0.068), and shopping addiction (r = 0.147, p = 0.064), although neither of them was statistically relevant. The relationship between perceived stress and shopping addiction was also weak and not statistically significant (r = 0.055, p = 0.490). The study concludes that gender differences have no significant impact on perceived stress or shopping addiction, and that confounding variables such as emotional control, impulsivity, and social effects might reduce the association between perceived stress and shopping addiction. Future studies should look at these aspects with bigger and more diverse sample sizes to further understand the relationship between stress and compulsive shopping behavior.

Keywords

Perceived Stress, Shopping Addiction, Healthcare Students, Gender Differences, Coping Mechanisms, Pearson Correlation, Emotional Regulation

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This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to cite this article: Saraf, M., Sharma, S., Kumar, R.S.H., Khan, D.S., Pulgar, Y., Jennifer, J., Govindan, N., Varghese, A.M., Anisha, A. & Gogoi, N. (2025). Relationship Between Perceived Stress and Impulsive Buying Behavior in Male and Female Health Care Students. International Journal of Indian Psychology, 13(2), 745-755. DIP:18.01.064.‌20251302, DOI:10.25215/1302.064