The Relation of Neurotic Personality and Impulsive Buying toward

Adolescent in Tarakan

Friska Indryani Sitorus

, Paulus Eddy Suhartanto

Postgraduate Student of Forensic Science Universitas Airlangga.

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology Sanata Dharma University

Keywords: Impulsive Buying, Neurotic Personality Tendencies, and Adolescent

Abstrak: This research aimed to determine the relationship between the neurotic personality tendencies and the

impulsive buying over the adolescents in Tarakan. This study involved the 300 adolescents (115 males and

185 females). The data collection was performed by filling the impulsive buying scale and the scale of

neurotic personality tendencies. The reliability of the scale of impulsive buying was (α) = 0.747, the

reliability of a compliant personality scale was (α) = 0.758, the reliability of the scale aggressive personality

was (α) = 0.801, and reliability of the scale detached personality was (α) = 0.795. The data analysis

techniques this research applied the Spearman's Rho test in SPSS for Windows version 23.0 since the data

distribution was irregular. The results showed that there were positive and significant correlation (r = 0.139;

p = 0.008) between the personality compliant (X = 36.11; SD = 4.853) and the impulsive buying (x

= 28.65;

SD = 4.038). There was a positive and a significant correlation (r = 0.156; p = 0.003) between the

aggressive personality (x = 32.38; SD = 4.499) and the impulsive buying (x

= 28.65; SD = 4.038).

1 INTRODUCTION

Adolescence is a transition from childhood to adult.

In this period, adolescents have rapid growth in

physic, psychology and social (Hurlock, 2004). This

rapid growth makes them tend to think abstractly

and in hurry. This is the character of adolescents

makes them is influenced by advertisement or tag-

line so that they tend to be impulsive. From the

result of previous research, most main target of

advertisement is adolescents because of labil

characteristic so that they are easy to influence to do

impulsive buying (Anin, Rasimin & Atamimi,

2008). Rawling, Boldero and Wiseman (in Ghani,

Imran & Jan, 2011) find that young people tend to

be more impulsive than adults.

Impulsive buying is irrational buying and it is

done quickly or spontaneous and also unplanned. It

is followed conflict of thought and emotional

impulse that can be against to do purchase

(Verplanken & Herabadi,2001). Emotional impulse

that can’t be against is because there is intents

feeling to do purchase as soon as possible so they

ignore negative impact and feel satisfied when they

buy. However, they have conflict in their minds

(Rook in Verplanken & Herabadi, 2001).

One of impulsive buying phenomenons occurs in

Tarakan city is such as reported by Kaltim.co.id that

buying power in Tarakan is high enough because of

the increasing of total population in Tarakan. It

makes Tarakan becomes developed from technology

sector, either fashion sector. Tarakan is more

dominated by young citizens who are in their15-50

years of 66.39% (BPS, statistic center bureau). High

buying power is shown in inflation graphic of

Taraan that shows higher commodity of clothing

group than other commodity groups.

Based on Siswandari (2005), clothing is the most

consumed product impulsively with the percentage

of 42.42%. Fashion is one of important elements to

support adolescents’ appearance so that they can be

accepted by their group (Hurlock in Anin, Rasimin,

& Atamimi, 2008). According to Mappiare (1982)

adolescents’ behavior who improve their appearance

in their group is because they follow trend in their

group. Trend that always develops everyday makes

adolescents to be more impulsive in buying goods to

support them, in term of fashion.

Impulsive buying is influenced by several factors

such as characteristic of product, marketing factor

and characteristic of customer that consists:

customer personality and customer demographic

Sitorus, F. and Suhartanto, P.

The Relation of Neurotic Personality and Impulsive Buying toward Adolescent in Tarakan.

DOI: 10.5220/0007539201510154

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School (ICPS 2018), pages 151-154

ISBN: 978-989-758-348-3

151

(Loudon & Bitta in Anin, Rasimin, & Atamimi,

2008). one of factors that can influence impulsive

buying is personality. Based on Verplanken &

Herabadi (2001), impulsive buying has general trend

that is very rooted in individual personality.

Individual personality is psychology aspect related

to tendency of impulsive buying. Personality is

customer’s guide in selecting the way to reach goal

in many different situations including about the way

customer consider themselves in selecting products

they will buy (Ferrianadewi, 2008). based on Hall

and Lindzey (1993) personality is a thing that gives

order and harmony toward various different

behaviors done by individual.

Previous research about impulsive buying with

personality conducted by Veplanken and Herabadi

(2001) explains that impulsive buying has general

tendency that is rooted in individual personality.

Rooted general tendency in personality makes

impulsive buying correlated with personality. In

addition, the research conducted by Shahjehan

Qureshi, Zeb & Saifullah (2012) shows that there is

positive relation between impulsive buying and

personality.

From many theories about personality

development, one of them is theory of personality by

Karen Horney which is neurotic personality.

According to Horney, neurotic personality is basic

of the development of anxiety. That basic hostility

from past experience is when childhood that related

to parents so it appears basic hostility (in Hidayat

2011). Honey divides neurotic personality in three

types which are complaint, aggressive, and detached.

Complaiant is individual with personality succumbs

that shows attitude and behavior that lead to other

people to obtain affection and support. Aggressive is

personality that leads to against other people with

strong and good looks so that they become center of

attention. Whereas detached is an individual who

has personality that is separated with the behavior

that moves away from other people so it can keep

emotional distance (in Hidayat, 2011).

Based on that explanation, researcher is

interested to observe the relation of neurotic

personality and impulsing buying toward adolescent.

Hypothesis in this research is there is

relationship between neurotic personality that is

compliant and agrressive with impulsive buying.

While in detached personality there is no

relationship with impulsive buying. The higher

compliant and aggressive personality, the higher

impulsive buying occurred in adolescents and vice

versa.

2 METHOD

Variables used in this research were neurotic

personality which were complaint, aggressive and

detached as independent variable and impulsive

buying as dependent variable. Research subject used

in this research was adolescents who are about 15

until 18 years old in Tarakan and the total was 300

subjects.

Method of collecting data in this research used

impulsive buying scale in form of likert scale.

Impulsive buying scale was based on cognitive

aspect and effective aspect that was developed by

Verplanken and Herabadi (2001). This scale

consisted of 20 questions with 12 favorable items

and 8 unfavorable items. Whereas in measuring,

neurotic personality used three type of neurotic such

as complaint, aggressive and detached which were

developed by Frederic L. Coolidge (2011). This

scale contented 57 items. Validity used in this

research was construct validity. Item can be said

valid if its coefficient value of validity per item is at

value 0,3 (Azwar, 2015).

This research used coefficient technique of

Alpha Croanbach to test reliability by using

calculation of SPSS 23.0 for Windows. Impulsive

buying scale had reliability of 0.747, scale in this

type of complaint personality had reliability of

0.758, scale in type of aggressive personality had

reliability of 0.801, and scale in type of detached

personality had reliability of 0.795.

Method of data analysis in this research used

technique analysis of hypothesis test Spearman’s

Rho. The reason using the technique was to find out

the existence of the relation between impulsive

buying variable and neurotic personality and

abnormal data.

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Based on normality test that was obtained in

dependent variable data which was impulsive data

having significant KS-Z value (p) 0.000 (p<0.05). It

showed that data distribution in impulsive data was

not normal. Whereas in independent variable was

neurotic personality in complaint having significant

KS-Z value (p)of 0.005 (p<0.05). It showed that data

distribution in complain personality is not normal.

Aggressive personality had significant KS-Z value

of (p) 0.000 (p<0.05). It showed that data

distribution in aggressive was not normal. In

addition, detached personality had significant KS-Z

ICPS 2018 - 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School

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value (p) 0.000 (p<0.05). It showed that data

distribution in detached is not normal.

Based on linearity test between neurotic

personality of complaint and impulsive buying was

obtained linearity F value of 0.001 (p<0.05). It

showed that complaint and impulsive buying had

linear relation. Personality of Aggressive and

Impulsive Buying (h) had significant value of 0.000

(p<0.05). This data showed that aggressive and

Impulsive Buying had linear relation. Detached and

Impulsive Buying had significant value of 0.280

(p<0.05). This data showed that Detached and

impulsive buying had relation which was not linear.

Based on Spearman’s Rho correlation, it was

obtained that compliant and impulsive buying had

correlation coefficient (r) of 0.139 with significant

value of 0.008 (p<0.05). This showed that there was

positive, low and significant relation between

compliant personality and impulsive buying so that

hypothesis could be accepted. Aggressive

personality and impulsive buying were obtained

correlation coefficient (r) 0.156 with significant

value of 0.030 (p<0.05). It showed that there was

positive, low and significant relations between

aggressive personality and impulsive buying. So that

hypothesis could be accepted. Detached personality

and impulsive buying were obtained correlation

coefficient (r) 0.054 with significant value of 0.178

(p>0.05). It showed that there is no relation between

detached and impulsive buying.

Based correlation analysis of Spearman’s Rho,

there were 2 neurotic personalities which were

compliant and aggressive which had significant

positive relation with impulsive buying. It meant, the

higher compliant and aggressive personality, the

higher impulsive buying occurred in adolescents and

vice versa.

Personality is unique and dynamic organization

from individual characteristic such as physic and

physiology that influenced behavior and reaction

toward social environment (Schiffman, 2008).

Adolescents with the tendency of complaint

personality had obedient characteristic and had fear

to be hosteled by other people so they though that

people’s hope and opinion were valued very high fro

themselves to do (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2011).

Obedient individual would be easy to be influenced

by advertisement and it made them to buy

spontaneously without thinking. According to

Kumar (2012), individual of complaint personality

tent to try to fulfill other people’s hope and

considered that people’s opinion was very important

(Olson & Hergenhahn, 2011). It was the same as

adolescents who though that if they could follow

trend, he/she could be accepted by his/her friends

(Sarwono, 2011). The importance to follow trend

made adolescents realize that social support from

their friends was very influenced by appearance and

based on things they had (Hurlock, 2011). therefore,

adolescents who had compliant personality tent to be

more easy to do impulsive buying.

Aggressive personality showed that there was

relation of impulsive buying toward adolescents in

Tarakan. It was because individual who had

aggressive personality emphasized the main needs in

their lives was recognized and becoming popular no

matter how much they paid to be able to

outperformed (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2011). It was

the same as adolescents’ thoughts which was

egocentric. They were sure that people were busy

become unique individual and unbeatable (Albert &

Steinberg in King, 2016).

Based on Jersild (1998) it was caused that

adolescents were entering sensitive period and

tendency of higher neurotic than other ages.

Individuals that had this personality were afraid to

be demeaned, disgraced, ignored that would make

harming their names (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2011).

So that they would do anything for good appearance

and to get social support from their friends (Monks,

2014). It made them would have high willing to buy

(Monks, 2014). Whereas adolescents in Tarakan that

had aggressive personality tent to hard to resist

encouragement in themselves not to do purchase in

product that they though interesting and products

that discussed by their friends.

It is different from individual who had high

detached personality tent to avoid other people and

they did not want to bound with anyone or anything

and they did not want to depend on anything (Feist

& Feist, 2010). This individuals were very

appreciated freedom and independence and they

were hard to detect (Feist & Feist. 2010). It made

them hard to be influenced by advertisement and

they would not do buying in hurry. These

adolescents were not easy to be influenced by trend.

They are differend from other adolescents who

wanted to be recognized, these adolescents did not

want to be connected to people.

4 CONCLUSION AND

SUGGESTION

Based on the result and discussion f the result, it can

be concluded that there is positive and significant

relation between neurotic personality of compliant

The Relation of Neurotic Personality and Impulsive Buying toward Adolescent in Tarakan

153

and aggressive with impulsive buying toward

adolescents.

Suggestion to research subject is adolescent can

be independent in decision-making to do purchase so

they are not easy to be influenced by groups or their

friends. In addition, adolescents are expected to

search information before buying product and they

do not emphasize effective aspect so there are no

negative risk.

This research limitation is in many scale items of

neurotic personality that have been formulated well

so that it has not met the rule of writing item. For

further research, it is expected to be more notice the

use of word in making item or adapting scale so that

items can be easier to understand.

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