MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ NGUYEN VAN ANH FROM UNCERTAINTY TO IMPULSIVE BUYING: THE ROLE OF UNMINDFULNESS AND AFTERLIFE BELIEFS PHD DISSERTATION IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION HANOI - 2024 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ NGUYEN VAN ANH FROM UNCERTAINTY TO IMPULSIVE BUYING: THE ROLE OF UNMINDFULNESS AND AFTERLIFE BELIEFS Specialization: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Specialization code: 9340101 PHD DISSERTATION Supervisor: Assoc. NGUYEN VU HUNG HANOI - 2024 DECLARATION I have read and understood the University’s policy on plagiarism, I hereby declare on my honor that this research literature review is my own work and does not violate the regulations on good academic practices. Hanoi, Jan 24th, 2024 PhD candidate Nguyen Van Anh i TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .i TABLE OF CONTENTS. ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
v LIST OF FIGURES .vi LIST OF TABLES. Reasons for choosing the topic. Research questions and objectives. Original contributions of the research.
Structure of the thesis .9 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. The Uncertainty and negative psychological impact. Nature of uncertainty. Classification of uncertainties.
Theories used in previous researches on uncertainty and effect. Limitations of these theories in clarifying the relationship between uncertainty and affect. UnMindfulness in psychological coping. Researches on mindfulness and negative psychological symptoms.
Uncovering the role of mindfulness in psychological coping. Impulsive buying as a behavioral coping strategy for the uncertainty. Characteristic of impulsive buying. Factors influencing Impulsive buying.
Cultural and Religious impact on impulsive buying. Research gaps of previous researches in impulsive buying. Afterlife beliefs and Impulsive buying. Afterlife belief and behavioral responses.
Research gaps of Afterlife belief .36 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 1. 38 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT. Uncertainty identity theory. Terror management theory.
COVID-19 pandemics – situation of uncertainty. Subjective uncertainty in COVID-19 pandemic. Self-Uncertainty in Covid-19. Social uncertainty in Covid-19.
Unmindfulness in psychological coping to COVID-19 pandemic. Afterlife beliefs in consumer’s behavioral coping with the COVID-19. Research model and hypotheses. Self-uncertainty and distress.
Social uncertainty and distress. Unmindfulness and the relationship between self-uncertainty and distress. Distress and impulsive buying. The moderator role of afterlife belief on the relationship between distress and impulsive buying.
54 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2. 57 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. The research context. The research Method.
The research Process. Research site and sampling. Data analysis tools .66 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 3. 67 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULTS.
Data analysis and measure validities. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results. Confirmation factory analysis (CFA) results. Factors affecting the distress in Covid-19 pandemic.
Factors affecting impulsive buying behavior. 84 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 4. 87 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Discussion of research findings.
Subjective Uncertainties and different level of distress. Social uncertainty and positive relationship with distress. The positive moderating role of unmindfulness. Afterlife beliefs and impulsive buying.
Limitations and further research .95 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 5. 96 LIST OF WORKS THAT THE PHD CANDIDATE HAS PUBLISHED .128 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations Full form ANOVA One-way analysis of variance CFA Confirmatory Factor Analysis CMB Common Method Bias EFA Explanatory Factor Analysis EM Extrinsic Motivation IM Intrinsic Motivation KMO Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Main steps in the quantitative research process .1: Relational terms of Unknown and Uncertainty (Carleton, 2016) .2: The mindful coping model (Garland et al. U-shape trajectory of mindfulness (Britton, 2019) .4: Model of Intrinsic - Extrinsic Religiosity and impulsive buying (Singh et al.1: The theoretical framework of the research .2: The synergistic impact of Self-Uncertainty and Unmindfulness to Distress .3: The synergistic impact of Distress and Afterlife Belief Extinction on impulsive buying. 86 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Theoretical models and proposed mechanisms of mindfulness (Gu et al.2: Unminfulness responses to adverse psychological .21 symptom (Bostic et al.1 Scaling of the Questionnaire .2: Measurement items for Self-uncertainty .3: Measurement items for Social uncertainty .4: Measurement items for Distress .5: Measurement items for Unmindfulness .6: Measurement items for Afterlife belief Extinction .7: Measurement items for Impulsive buying.1: Demographic profile of respondents.
KMO and Bartlett's Test. Construct EFA and reliability analysis. Correlation between variables .5: Goodness of Fit Indices for Confirmatory Factor Analysis .6: CFA testing results .7: Average Variance Extracted and discriminant validity test .8: Descriptive Statistics of scores for measurement items .9: Descriptive Statistics of summated scores for measurement items .10: Model Summary with the distress as dependent variable .12: Regression results with the distress as the dependent variable .13: Model Summary with impulsive buying behavior as independent variable .15: Regression results with impulsive buying behavior as the dependent variable. Reasons for choosing the topic The COVID-19 pandemic or similar traumatic events represent “time of uncertainty” that have caused negative consequences worldwide (Chakraborty & Maity, 2020; Levy, 2020).
In particular, by August 25th, 2021, confirmed global COVID-19 infections had reached 213.05 million with 4,448,352 death cases (WHO, 2021). As of June 1, 2022, 2 years later, the COVID-19 spread out every continent with more than 530 million confirmed cases and more than 6 million people lost their lives (Dong et al. People worldwide may face uncertainties in many aspects of life, such as health and personal life (Islam et al., 2020; Kruglanski et al., 2021; Levy, 2020; Menzies & Menzies, 2020). Such uncertainties about our present and future are revealed during the various waves of COVID-19 (Sodi et al.
COVID-19 is just the tip of the iceberg as, human beings will be challenged to a future with ongoing manifestations of similar or further levels of dangerous pandemics (Telenti et al. Uncertainty is common during disasters and public health crises (Afifi et al., 2012), and may be considered a significant risk factor impacting individuals' psychological well-being (Satici et al., 2022) and behavioral responses (Anderson, 2019). Understanding the coping mechanism with uncertainty will prepare the global community for the subsequent pandemics, mainly because these uncertainties may cause substantial effects on customer psychology and consumption behaviors worldwide (Ahmed et al., 2020; Banerjee, 2020; Chakraborty & Maity, 2020). In psychology, significant recent research indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic is related to negative psychological symptoms such as psychological distress in worldwide (Koffman et al.
Distress refer to feelings of vulnerability, sadness, and fears (Barry et al., 2020) to recent life difficulties or stressful situations that may impact in long-term of mental health (Zhou & Guo, 2021). In fact, according to a report using data from 32 different countries about psychosocial and mental health consequences in the COVID-19 pandemic, different problems were recorded including depression (28%), anxiety (26.5%), among others (Nochaiwong et al. Moreover, a systematic review has found that the COVID- 19 was related to psychology distress worldwide (Holmes et al. Xiong et al.
That is why it raises the challenge of social and scientific issues 1 that this symptom of psychological distress in COVID-19 was predicted to worsen and create a storm of suicide, the most vulnerable category (Brown & Schuman, 2021) and burdens for government agencies and healthcare professionals in safeguarding the psychological wellbeing of the community in the COVID-19 pandemic and other similar events. It calls for practical and theoretical development research to understand and provide effective ways of coping in such a situation is of paramount importance (Hiscott et al., 2020; Holmes et al. While the available literature offers valuable insights into how uncertainty is associated with distress, knowledge of research gaps of the negative relationship between subjective uncertainty and psychological distress remains (Carleton, 2016). Firstly, existing literature conveys that individuals (Rutter, 2020) including self-uncertainty and social uncertainty (Kruglanski et al., 2021; Wong & Moorhouse, 2020) which are associated with distress and motivation to reduce (Michael A.
Hogg, 2000; Hogg, 2007; Hogg & Belavadi, 2017; Hohman & Hogg, 2015). However, individuals may interpret differently the uncertain experiences that produce various emotional responses (Moors et al. Besides, theoretical and the reality convey that uncertainty has both of negative and positive emotional responses, for example, the Covid-19 pandemic might also bring people the opportunity in some ways as the caring of their health and families (Li et al., 2020); higher levels of positive emotions than negative emotions (Israelashvili, 2021). Therefore, this research will clarify the mechanism of two typical subjective uncertainties of self-uncertainty and social uncertainty in the relationship with distress in the COVID- 19 pandemic, especially in reverse relationships.
Among the previous literature regarding the mechanism of coping with uncertainty, unmindfulness provides the best understanding of the way people use cognitive processes to change their focus of attention to modify the situation and their emotional responses (Anderson, 2019) from personal experience-based psychology, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (Grossman, 2010). And in this research, the term unmindfulness refers to the proposal of Langer as the contrasting concept of mindfulness (Langer, 2016). In particularly, mindfulness variables assess the presence of attention to and awareness of current events while unmindfulness which people may not pay attention and their minds may be out of from present experiences (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Hassed, 2013; Langer, 2016). Researchers have developed several promising positives in moderator roles of attentional focus of mindfulness to manage stress and regulate negative thoughts and feelings during the COVID-19 2 pandemic (Weis et al.
In general, people can use cognitive processes to change their focus of attention to modify the situation and their emotional responses (Anderson, 2019). However, the U-shape trajectory of mindfulness potentially explains both negative and positive emotional outcomes (Britton, 2019; Grant & Schwartz, 2011). That is why this research raises the possibility of the positive side of unmindfulness or “negative effects” of mindfulness and its role in the mechanism of the individual cognitive process of uncertainties in the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study seeks a deep understanding of the positive moderator role of unmindfulness, specifically in the relationship between self-uncertainty and distress.
In the literature on consumer behavior, uncertainty is an important concept that may affect consumer behaviors (Shiu et al., 2011; Urbany et al. After the individual shock or the consequences of natural disasters, the way uncertainty influences consumer behavioral coping response to traumatic events, such as earthquakes, floods, or pandemics… has become an essential concept of profound interest in the field of psychology and marketing (Shiu et al. For example, existing literature seems to indicate that the Covid-19 pandemic is changing individuals’ consumption behavior in both meaning and forms (Kohli et al., 2020; Puttaiah et al. In terms of forms, online transactions on digital platforms are becoming more and more popular (Gu et al.
This is completely understandable because these transactions will help reduce infectious offline contacts and are required in many cases when some regions and territories practice social distancing. In terms of meaning, consumers seem to be changing their behavior, focusing on products that have more essential and value for money (Khayru, 2021; Truong & Truong, 2022). Behaviors of buying and consuming products prioritize the maximum of benefits for consumers over the money they spend. Therefore, typical consumption behaviors that have been studied before such as impulse buying behavior may certainly undergo significant changes under the impact of this pandemic (M.
For example, coping with Covid-19, impulsive buying behavior was reported as a very common behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in both the developed and developing countries (Iyer et al., 2020; Li et al, 2020; M. Traditionally, psychologists have regarded impulse buying as harmful, so it has been called for the mechanism which comprehensive exploration seeks to understand the psychological, social, and environmental factors that trigger impulsive buying tendencies and factors as a moderator to uncover valuable insights into impulsive buying behavior and 3 understand why customers buy impulsively under global uncertainty of COVID-19 pandemic (Cain, 2020; Redine et al.