The Effect of Big Five Factors of Personality on Compulsive Buying: The Mediating Role of Consumer Negative Emotions

: This study has examined the direct effect of Big Five Factors of personality (BFF) which include (Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience) on Compulsive Buying (CB). Besides, examining the mediating effect of Consumer Negative Emotions (CNE) in the relationship between Big Five Factors of personality (BFF) and Compulsive Buying (CB). The questionnaire for the study was adapted from earlier established scales and measures which were based on five points Likert Scale. The study was concentrated on shopping malls’ customers in North Delta (Egypt). The study used a sample size of 384 and data was collected randomly using systematic random sampling. 314 questionnaires were valid for statistical analysis and free of missing data were retrieved with a response rate of 81.7%. Smart PLS-SEM3 software was used for data analysis. The results showed that there is a significant positive effect of Neuroticism on compulsive buying. While the results indicated that Extraversion has a significant negative effect on compulsive buying. Also, the results found that Conscientiousness has a significant negative effect on compulsive buying. While Agreeableness and Openness to Experience hadn’t had any effect on compulsive buying. As for the mediating effect of Consumer Negative Emotions, the results mentioned that Consumer Negative Emotions has a partial mediation in the relationship between Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness, and Compulsive Buying. While Consumer Negative Emotions fully mediated the relationship between Openness to Experience and Compulsive Buying. But there was no mediation for Consumer Negative Emotions in the relationship between Agreeableness and Compulsive Buying.


Conceptual background
defined compulsive buying as a recurring chronic purchase which becomes an initial response to negative events or feelings as a way to modify the general mood which includes intense impulsivity from consumers towards purchasing items they don't need. Also, it can be defined as a tendency to purchase addiction that arises from the persistence of repeated motivations to buy or perform ritual purchases that are difficult to resist and which may be enjoyable. Therefore, compulsive buying in its essence is a chronic psychological disorder that is difficult to control (Harnish et al., 2016). Roberts & Roberts, (2012) indicated that four basic criteria are required to diagnose compulsive buying which are: Firstly, A constant preoccupation with shopping, spending, and impulsivity towards purchasing in an intrusive and difficult to control manner, secondly, Money that is often spent on unnecessary items, Thirdly, buying causes anxiety, shame, and guilt, Finally, the time spent in shopping and spending conflicts with work and family. Moreover, Horváth et al., (2018) agreed with Iqbal & Aslam, (2016) that compulsive buying has some consequence which can be stated as follows: 1) Financial distress, insolvency, marital and legal problems. 2) Compulsive buyers are more likely to develop additional maladaptive behaviors such as eating disorders, drug use, mood disorders. 3) Compulsive buyers feel a sense of remorse, guilt, and shame after completing the compulsive buying cycle, as the buying process itself, not the products that modify from their negative emotions. 4) Getting rid of the products that the compulsive buyer has purchased because he is not interested in these products, he feels the pleasure and joy of the short-term only during the purchase cycle itself.
Big Five Factors of personality can be defined as they are five basic factors for describing and explaining human personality traits. These traits have been reached through many researchers in the field of personality namely, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Each factor represents an abstraction of a different set of harmonious traits (Yoon & Lim, 2018). Kude et al., (2017) defined every factor of these personality factors. Neuroticism is characterized by excessive anxiety that causes psychological distress, emotional suffering, and an inability to deal with the activities of daily life. While Agreeableness refers to the individual's concern for cooperation and social harmony, the characteristics of his behavior include observing friendliness with others and being prepared to serve the interests of others. As for Extraversion, it is described as firm and always action-oriented, members of this trait are excited and interested in drawing feelings and love to talk to others. Conscientiousness refers to that individuals can control and regulate their impulsivity concerning decisionmaking and work-oriented behaviors. Finally, Openness to Experience is characterized by openness to new ideas, involves patterns of awareness and creative imagination. Therefore, its members are widely distinguished by intellectual curiosity.
Undoubtedly, emotions play an important role in consumer behavior. Consumers communicate emotionally with products and brands. Therefore, their purchasing behavior is based on this relationship. Some researchers believe that emotion is perceptual as a behavioral trait of the individual. On the other hand, they are viewed by others as a response to external motivations and for the individual's evaluation of information. Consumer behavior researchers also believe that emotion has a fundamental impact on consumer behavior through different feelings of fear, anxiety, general mood, how they think, and make purchasing decisions, moreover how they feel after making their purchasing decisions (Koshkaki, 2014). Consumer Emotions can be defined as Short-term, intense, and conscious responses from the individual to stimuli in his environment, as well as having a great impact on individual thinking and behavior, in addition to having long-term consequences for the quality of life (Isaac & Çakmak, 2016). Also, it can be defined as responses to the motivational event, which include subjective experiences as the cognitive component and physiological changes as an excitement component in addition to physical inclinations such as body position and facial expressions (Foroughi et al., 2016). Ma et al., (2016) showed that emotion is a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon. Many studies have indicated that positive and negative emotions represent antecedents to emotions. Positive emotion is an antecedent to a set of behaviors such as repurchase intention, good word of mouth, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. While negative emotion is an antecedent to a set of behaviors like anger, sadness, behavioral shifts, and bad word of mouth. Laros & Steenkamp, (2005) indicated that consumer emotional response after consumption is considered a real prediction of future consumer attitudes, it showed the existence of a hierarchy of emotions in its positive and negative effects. Happiness, love, contentment, and pride are emotions extracted from positive emotional effects. While anger, fear, sadness, and shyness are emotions extracted from negative emotional effects.
Han & Jeong, (2013) stated that consumer emotions have emerged as a powerful factor in influencing consumer's behavior and attitude, it indicates that the positive or negative feelings of the individual are a result of individual beliefs. This proofs that positive emotions are closely related to consumer positive behavioral attitudes, moreover negative emotions are closely related to negative behavioral tendencies when engaging in specific behaviors. Saran et al., (2016) mentioned that positive emotions develop through success in achieving the goal. Therefore, positive emotions represent a great opportunity for marketers as one of the strong influences on consumer purchasing decisions and behavior. Also, these studies warn of consumer's negative emotions which results in effects that harm the interest of marketers and lead to consumer dissatisfaction in the end.
Further, Moon & Attiq (2018) stated that negative emotions are the way for consumers to engage in compulsive buying. The authors added that when consumers have a negative emotion, they would be more able to go shopping to modify their negative feelings by doing a lot of buying process. Therefore, negative emotions will be adopted in the current paper.
Based on the above theoretical discussions, we have developed a conceptual framework that has direct and indirect relationships, depicted in Figure1. The literature support for the proposed hypotheses are presented in the subsequent sections. Other previous studies like (Rose & Segrist, 2014) examined extraversion and neuroticism as a predictor for compulsive buying. The results confirmed that extraversion and neuroticism act as a predictor for compulsive buying behavior. Also, (Otero-López et al., 2017) explored the prediction of compulsive buying behavior through personality factors. The results found that neuroticism is positively related to compulsive buying. While Agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively related to compulsive buying. (Shehzadi et al., 2016) indicated that all factors of personality have a significant correlation with compulsive buying. Although, Yoon & Lim, (2018) found that all factors of personality traits have no significant and compulsive buying. Therefore, as an agreement with these previous studies, the following hypothesis can be formulated: H1: Big Five Factors (BFF) of personality have a significant effect on Compulsive Buying (CB), this hypothesis is divided into the following sub-hypotheses: H1a: Neuroticism has a significant effect on Compulsive Buying.
H1b: Extraversion has a significant effect on Compulsive Buying.
H1c: Agreeableness has a significant effect on Compulsive Buying.
H1d: Conscientiousness has a significant effect on Compulsive Buying.
H1e: Openness to Experience has a significant effect on Compulsive Buying. (Tan et al., 2003;Matzler et al., 2005) found that neuroticism has a negative effect on consumers' positive emotions and even lead to display negative emotions. While (Ramanathan & Williams, 2007) showed that the big five factors moderate the relationship between negative emotions and impulsivity. Also, the study indicated that there is a significant correlation between the big five factors and negative emotions. H2a: Neuroticism has a significant effect on Consumer Negative Emotions.

Big Five Factors and Consumer Negative Emotions
H2b: Extraversion has a significant effect on Consumer Negative Emotions.
H2c: Agreeableness has a significant effect on Consumer Negative Emotions.
H2d: Conscientiousness has a significant effect on Consumer Negative Emotions.
H2e: Openness to Experience has a significant effect on Consumer Negative Emotions.

Consumer Negative Emotions and Compulsive Buying
Saraneva & Sääksjärvi, (2008) tended to examine the relationship between consumer emotions and compulsive buying. The results found that compulsive buyers' emotions swing positively and negatively while shopping until they can get what they want. So, the results showed that the emotions that compulsive buyers possess are more complicated than previously thought, as during the shopping process positive or negative emotions often don't appear. Consumers are satisfied with obtaining their full desires at the same time they have a sense of fear of losing a new opportunity to buy a product. If their desires are realized then they feel proud, happy, and achieving the goal which creates positive emotions. If they cannot get what satisfies their desires then they feel disappointment, sadness, and lack of success which leads to negative emotions.
Also, Sneath et al., (2009) explored the relationship between consumer emotions, impulsive, and compulsive buying. The results mentioned that there is a positive correlation between negative emotions and consumer attitude towards impulsive and compulsive buying behaviors. Also, Lue et al., (2018) found that negative emotions lead to the tendency towards compulsive buying.
Additionally, (Moon & Attiq, 2018) explored the relationship between negative emotions and compulsive buying. The results indicated that negative emotions have a positive correlation with compulsive buying behavior. So, the results considered negative emotions as an antecedent for compulsive buying. Moreover, the results found that consumers after doing their compulsive buying have positive emotions for the short term only. Thus, the following hypothesis can be formulated: H3: Consumer Negative Emotions have a significant effect on Compulsive Buying.

The mediating role of Consumer Negative Emotions
Ramanathan & Williams, (2007) indicated that the big five factors moderate the relationship between consumer negative emotions and his attitude towards impulsive buying which leads to compulsive buying, Also, (Saran et al., 2016) found that the big five factors are related closely to consumer emotions.
Also, the results obtained from (Williams & Grisham, 2012) showed that consumer emotions are closely related to the possibility of his attitude towards compulsive buying behavior. Besides, the results obtained from (Sneath et al., 2009) and (Moon & Attiq, 2018) reported that the formation of negative emotions for the consumer pushes him towards compulsive buying behavior.
Considering the above, there is a direct relationship between the big five factors of personality and consumer emotions. As well as a direct relationship between consumer emotions and compulsive buying. With a review of previous studies, it is found that there is an absence of a study that addressed the indirect effects of the big five factors of personality on compulsive buying by mediating consumer negative emotions according to the researcher's knowledge. Therefore, the current paper seeks to examine this indirect effect through the current research proposed framework by merging hypotheses 1,2,3. Therefore, the following hypothesis can be suggested:

Survey measures
The current research adopted a survey using questionnaires to obtain data for testing the research

Sampling technique
The current study which is a part of a large study depended only on shopping malls' consumers in north Delta (Egypt). The questionnaires were distributed according to a systematic random sampling approach. The questionnaires were distributed to consumers in Damietta and Mansoura which represent North Delta. 8 shopping malls were selected (4 in Damietta and 4 in Mansoura) as the most famous shopping malls in North Delta. In order to complete the procedures for drawing the systematic random sampling and to achieve the randomness in the selection, the questionnaires were distributed to customers by making a time selection distance of 10 minutes in the sense of collecting one questionnaire list every 10 minutes until completing the required sample members. Moreover, the distribution was done within 4 fixed days per week, starting from Wednesday to Saturday during the period from January 2020 to March 2020. Basically, 384 questionnaires were directed to customers. 314 questionnaires were valid for statistical analysis and free of lost data were retrieved with a response rate of 81.7%. Table 1 shows a summary of the respondents' demographic profiles. The sample represents the consumers who visit the most famous shopping malls in north delta. Of the 314 respondents, 22.3% were males, and 77.7% were females. The sample respondents' age who are less than 30 years represents 43.6%. 29% from the sample respondents their ages ranged between 30 to less than 40 years. 19.4% of respondents were between the age of 40 to less than 50 years. 8% of the respondents were more than 50 years. 58% of respondents were married, 23.9% were single, 16.2% were divorced, and 1.9% were widowed. Also, these results can be illustrated graphically as in the following figures 2,3,4:

Results
Smart PLS3 was used to test the research hypotheses. Table 2 summarizes the results of the descriptive analysis.  (Ketchen & Bergh, 2006) Cronbach's Alpha for all constructs should reach 0.70 to be acceptable. Therefore, the internal consistency for all constructs is accepted. Moreover, all the Skewness and Kurtosis values for all constructs ranged between ±1.5, which means that all constructs fulfill the requirements of univariate normality according to the criteria of (Kline, 2011). Table 3 indicates the results of convergent validity for all constructs. To evaluate the internal consistency, Cronbach's alpha coefficients (α) and Composite reliability coefficients (CR) have been adopted in the current research. As well as (Ketchen & Bergh, 2006) stated that in SEM CR represents the internal consistency. Therefore, it can be used in the reliability estimation besides α is a good estimator for the internal consistency reliability of measurement scale. According to (De Vaus, 2002), α and CR should be equal or more than 0.70 to be acceptable and have good reliability for the research variables. The findings indicate that all constructs' CR values reached 0.70 and higher. Besides, all constructs' Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values were higher than 0.50. Therefore, these values were accepted according to (Ketchen & Bergh, 2006;Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Thus, all constructs convergent validity was acceptable.

Discriminant Validity
According to (Hair et al., 2016), Discriminant validity refers to the extent to which each variable is distinct from other variables. Thus, the square root of AVE is used to measure discriminant validity. The value of each variable AVE square root should be greater than its' correlation with other variables. Table 4 shows the results related to discriminant validity for all constructs. According to (Hair et al., 2016), discriminant validity refers to the extent to which each variable is distinct from other variables. The results presented in Table 4 indicating that the square root of AVE values depicted diagonally are greater than the rest of the values which are square of each pair of correlation. This confirms that all the constructs used in the study are unique and distinctive. Thus, convergent validity for all constructs is acceptable according to (Fornell and Larcker, 1981) criteria.

Results of Hypotheses testing
In this study, 4 hypotheses have been tested. 3 of these hypotheses were direct and the fourth hypothesis was indirect. The results summary is presented in table 5.
As shown in table 5, H3 is supported. While H1, H2, and H4 are partially supported because only the subhypotheses H1a, H1b, H1d, H2d, H2e, H4a, H4b, H4d, and H4e were supported. Moreover, for the direct effects, the results indicated that neuroticism has a significant positive effect on compulsive buying (β= 0.300, P =0.001). Thus, H1a was supported. Also, the results found that extraversion has a significant negative effect on compulsive buying (β= -0.103, P =0.037). Thus, H1b was supported. As for H1d, Conscientiousness affected compulsive buying significantly and negatively (β= -0.330, P =0.001). Thus, H1d was supported. While The results indicated that agreeableness and openness to experience haven't any significant effect on compulsive buying. Therefore, H1c and H1e were not supported. Likewise, the results found that neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience have a significant effect on consumer negative emotions. Conscientiousness affected compulsive buying negatively (β= -0.250, P =0.005). While neuroticism and openness to experience affected consumer negative emotions positively (β= 0.205, P =0.039), (β= 0.293, P =0.012) respectively. Thus, H2a, H2d, and H2e were supported. In contrast, the results showed that extraversion and agreeableness haven't any significant effect on consumer negative emotions. Therefore, H2b and H2c were not supported. As for H3, the results indicated that it is supported, whereas consumer negative emotions affected compulsive buying significantly and positively (β= 0.549, P =0.0001).
For the indirect effect, H4 was tested and the results found that it is partially supported. As for H4a, H4b, H4d, and H4e, they were supported. While H4c was not supported. H4a represented the mediating role of consumer negative emotions in the relationship between neuroticism and compulsive buying .The results showed that consumer negative emotions have a partial mediation in this relationship. Also, consumer negative emotions have a partial mediation in the relationship between extraversion and compulsive buying. Also, consumer negative emotions have a partial mediation in the relationship between conscientiousness and compulsive buying. Thus, H4a, H4b, H4d were supported. While consumer negative emotions had a full mediation in the relationship between openness to experience and compulsive buying. Thus, H4e was supported. Finally, As for H4c which represented the mediating effect of consumer negative emotions in the relationship between agreeableness and compulsive buying. Also, the results found that consumer negative emotions have no mediation in this relationship. Thus, H4c was not supported.

Discussion
Based on the Conceptual background, the authors proposed 4 main hypotheses. Out of 4 hypotheses, 3 hypotheses were partially supported, and 1 hypothesis was fully supported. The relevance of the results with earlier studies follows: Hypothesis number 1 (H1) was partially supported as H1a, H1b, and H1d were supported, but H1c and H1e were not supported. These results were not with agreement with previous studies. The authors justified this differentiation due to the research population and sample are not identical between the current research and previous studies, in addition to the different applied environment.
As for H2, it was partially supported. H2a, H2d, and H2e were supported, while H2b and H2c were not supported. These results supported the results extracted from (Tan et al., 2003;Matzler et al., 2005) which found that neuroticism has a negative effect on consumers' positive emotions and even leads to displaying negative emotions.
In addition, H3 was supported. This result agreed with the results extracted from (Sneath et al., 2009;Moon & Attiq, 2018). This agreement shows that negative emotions push the consumer towards compulsive buying to moderate his mood and feelings.
Besides, H4 was partially supported. H4a, H4b, H4d, and H4e were supported. While H4c was not supported. H4a, H4b, and H4d showed that consumer negative emotions have a partial mediation which means that neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness have a significant effect on compulsive buying even if consumer negative emotions do not exist. In another word, consumer negative emotions are not important for neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness to affect compulsive buying (Partial mediation). While for H4e, the existence of consumer negative emotions is very important for openness to experience to affect compulsive buying (Full mediation). Previous studies like (Sneath et al., 2009) and (Moon & Attiq, 2018) stated that negative emotions are the core of pushing the consumer towards compulsive buying.

Conclusion
The results indicate that the personality traits of the consumer affect his attitude towards compulsive buying behavior. Also, the results confirmed that consumers belonging to neuroticism tend to compulsive buying behavior, while consumers who belong to the extraversion and conscientiousness don't engage in compulsive buying behaviors.
In addition, the influence of the personality traits of the consumer on his negative emotions. The results show that neuroticism and openness to experience are positively related to consumer's negative emotions. Also, conscientiousness is negatively related to consumer's negative emotions. While agreeableness and extraversion have no correlation with consumer's negative emotions. Furthermore, the negative emotions of the consumer pushing him towards engaging in compulsive buying behaviors in the belief that this behavior will alter his general mood.
Also, the results confirmed that consumer negative emotions partly mediate the relationship between (extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness) and compulsive buying. While consumer negative emotions fully mediated the relationship between openness to experience and compulsive buying. Furthermore, consumer negative emotions didn't mediate the relationship between agreeableness and compulsive buying.

Theorical Implications
The current study sought to highlight compulsive buying behavior and the most important factors that lead the consumer to engage in this behavior as addictive behavior that causes many problems at the individual and society level (Spinella et al., 2013), especially by applying the research to shopping malls because they contain a huge group of products and services that contribute to consumer involvement in compulsive buying behavior. This study provides empirical evidence for the relationship between the big five factors of personality and compulsive buying with reliance on consumer negative emotions by studying the direct and indirect effects of mediating consumer negative emotions. As some previous studies examined the direct relationship between the big five factors of personality and compulsive buying, and this relationship was also studied in the current study to complement the previous studies, but in the current study this relationship was also tested indirectly by mediating the consumer negative emotions that was not tested in previous studies according to the authors' knowledge. This study enriches the current literature on compulsive buying, especially in Egypt, which many researchers have not mentioned. In addition, the results of the current study confirmed that compulsive buying is a problem that many consumers suffer from.

Practical Implications
Compulsive buying is harmful behavior and has serious consequences that have been proven by previous studies (Rapp, 2012;Moon & Attiq, 2018) at the individual and group levels. On the individual level, compulsive buying leads to depression, stress, low self-esteem, feelings of shame, financial difficulties, and troubled personal relationships. On the collective level, compulsive buying leads to excessive use of natural resources and high-interest rates. Therefore, this behavior must be the focus of attention in many areas, not just the marketing field since it is classified as an addictive behavior from which the consumer must be warned and work to find solutions to this behavior. Also, the results of this study supported that compulsive buying is an addictive behavior as an agreement with the previous studies.
Understanding the antecedents and consequences of compulsive buying enables the development of strategies to interfere in the treatment of consumers who suffer from compulsive buying. Fostering careful spending attitude can be applied as a preventive measure for compulsive buying. Accordingly, develop treatment programs that contribute to the treatment of the consumer gradually. The results of the current study indicated that the applied environment resulted in the presence of compulsive buyers as well as the personal factors of the consumer and his negative emotions had a noticeable role in his attitude towards compulsive buying behavior. Therefore, the consumer must be aware of the reasons for moving towards compulsive buying behavior to avoid engaging in it and bear its dire consequences.

Limitations and suggestions for Future Research
This study has few limitations, as data were collected only from the famous shopping malls in North Delta which include Damietta and Mansoura in Egypt. Future studies can extend to the use of other demographic variables not included in the current study, such as the number of weekly shopping times and the identification of centers of malls' favorite names for each customer. The concept of compulsive buying is very complex and has a large set of factors that lead to this behavior. Therefore, future studies may take a holistic approach by combining other variables not included in the current study model such as hedonic values, money attitudes, credit card, depression and self-esteem taking into consideration building a comprehensive model that includes mediator and moderator variables.