Over a third of Americans collect at least one type of item, with similar proportions found in other Western cultures. Despite the large size of the global population of collectors, little has been investigated in terms of collecting behaviors and their relationship with identity, compulsive buying, shopping addiction, mood modification, interpersonal relationships, spiritual aspects to collecting, and the differences between collectors. Cross-cultural research was used to investigate the aforementioned relationships and build a groundwork for future research. In addition, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on collecting behaviors was examined, with a focus on exploring the differences between people that greatly increased collection spending during the pandemic compared to those that did not or moderately increased their spending. High salience in collector identity was associated with higher levels of excessive buying, shopping addiction, mood modification, communal support for collecting, competitive collecting, relatedness with other collectors, viewing collecting as sacred/spiritual, and lower levels of doubt about collecting. Young and single collectors most drastically increased their spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to higher levels of doubt, guilt, disgust, fear, loneliness, relationship strain, higher levels of dependence on collecting to modify mood, and higher levels of withdrawal symptoms consistent with addiction.

An exploratory study was conducted to investigate the relationship between heavy metal music and sexism based on metal subgenre preferences, lyrical preferences, affective responses to album cover imagery, consumption of merchandise that depicts misogynistic violence, perceptions of sexism in metal based on gender and subgenre-preferences, and the relationship between gender and questioned legitimacy as metal fans. It was found that the style of metal music preferred, including specific subgenres of styles associated with misogynistic themes like death metal, was unrelated to sexism. Hostile sexism was higher among those with lyrical and artwork preferences towards misogynistic violence. Those higher in hostile sexism experienced more positive and less aversive emotions in response to both lyrics and imagery that depicted misogynistic violence, and they were the most likely individuals to buy albums, clothing, wear clothing, and hang posters in their homes that depicted misogynistic violence. Although metal fans generally did not see sexism as an issue within metal culture, women were more likely to identify sexism as an issue, and women were more likely to report a greater frequency of having their legitimacy as metal fans questioned. This provides evidence that many death metal fans might be listening with a focus on the music, and only those with higher levels of sexism might be attentive to and enjoy lyrics and imagery about misogynistic violence. It’s also the case that despite heavy metal culture often emphasizing inclusiveness as an idea, evidence demonstrated that women continue to experience inequality in metal.