A psychological exploration into collecting behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

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.