Quantitative Analysis on Late-Night Impulse Buying Among Young

People

Zimo Zhou

Business School, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

Keywords: Staying up Late, Shopping Decision Speed, Consumer Behavior, Sleep Deprivation.

Abstract: In today's society, staying up late has become a typical occurrence for young people. The impact of sleep

deprivation on impulse control emotion management, and decision-making has been the subject of numerous

prior research, but few studies have further explored the relationship between staying up late and shopping

activities. Based on a common phenomenon in today's society, this article explores the relationship between

young people's habit of staying up late and the speed of shopping decision speed. This paper conducts

benchmark regression, ordinal regression and interaction test, and shows that staying up late will significantly

affect the shopping decisions speed. When consumers stay up later, they will make shopping decisions faster.

In addition, individual income and emotional influences, as well as merchant promotions, also have different

effects on shopping decisions speed. This study offers fresh ideas for sellers as well as a fresh viewpoint on

consumer behavior research.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, staying up late has become the norm for

many people. Especially for young generation, due to

the pressure of study, work and personal habits, more

and more people will choose to extend their

entertainment time at night. However, staying up late

not only affects an individual's physical and mental

health, but may also have a profound impact on their

consumption behavior. Behavioral economics and

psychology research shows that sleep deprivation

may affect people's emotional regulation, decision-

making ability and impulse control, which may lead

to significant differences in shopping behavior

between people who stay up late and those who have

normal schedules. For example, Salfi et al. (2020)

found that sleep-deprived people were more likely to

choose immediate gratification over long-term

benefits when making decisions. Medical and

biological research consistently demonstrates that

insufficient sleep has adverse effects on cognitive

function, decision-making ability, and physical

fitness (Barnes et al., 2011). In current research, many

scholars tend to investigate the connection between

sleep deprivation and people's emotional regulation,

decision-making ability and impulse control. For

example, Khan et al. (2023) pointed out that sleep

reduction could lead to cognitive impairment. Zhang

et al. (2021) also mentioned that insufficient sleep

could impair cognitive performance. This article will

further explore the connection between staying up

late and impulsive consumption behavior, aiming to

explore whether the habit of staying up will

significantly affect the speed of individuals' shopping

decisions late at night, whether this effect will be

moderated by the individual's income level, and the

impact of merchants' promotional activities and

individual emotions on the shopping decisions speed.

Exploring shopping behavior from the perspective of

daily living habits provides a new perspective for

consumer behavior research, and also provides

reference suggestions for retailers.

Based on questionnaire survey data, this study

uses benchmark regression, ordinal regression and

interaction test to explore the impact of staying up late

habits on shopping decision speed. First, the variables

are defined and benchmark regression is used to

derive the relationship between the variables. Then,

the results are robustly tested through ordered

regression and interaction term tests. Next, this article

will first review previous literature, focusing on the

definition and impact of sleep deprivation; followed

by a detailed introduction to the research methods of

this article, including data sources, variable

definitions, and analysis methods; finally, it will

442

Zhou, Z.

Quantitative Analysis on Late-Night Impulse Buying Among Young People.

DOI: 10.5220/0013993000004916

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication (PRMC 2025), pages 442-447

ISBN: 978-989-758-778-8

summarize the research conclusions and put forward

suggestions.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Relevant Studies on the

Conceptualization of Sleep

Deprivation

The term ‘sleep deprivation’ characterizes a state in

which people do not get enough sleep for a variety of

reasons, including personal behaviors and external

environmental conditions (Harrison et al., 2000). The

age determines the recommended amount of sleep:

children need 9-11 hours, teens who aged 14-18 need

8-10 hours, and adults usually need at least 7-8 hours

every day (Kim et al., 2022). On this basis, Harrison

et al. (2000) indicated that a person suffering from

sleep deprivation frequently sleeps for fewer than 6

hours every night. Total sleep deprivation (TSD) and

partial sleep deprivation (PSD) are the two categories

into which researchers divide sleep deprivation

according to its duration. The hallmark of TSD is the

total incapacity to sleep for a full 24 hours. On the

contrary, a sleep duration below a certain threshold is

referred to as PSD, which represents a more

comprehensive definition of sleep deprivation

(Reynolds et al., 2010).

There are many factors in life that can lead to lack

of sleep. Kevin et al. (2007) pointed out that

insufficient sleep can occur for medical,

psychological, environmental, occupational or

socioeconomic reasons. For certain groups, the

reasons for sleep deprivation are more specific. For

example, for students, the primary causes for poor

sleep are school pressure, social media and streaming

applications, and social ties. The data comes from a

sample of 183 people who responded was gathered.

42.4% of responders were men, and 57.6% of them

were women. 81% were in the 19-21 age range, 12%

were in the 16-18 age range, and the remaining

respondents were in the 22-25 age range. Mumbai-

based Shri Yashwantrao Junior College students and

degree college students made up the sample (Khemka

et al., 2020).

2.2 Relevant Studies on the Impact of

Sleep Deprivation

Numerous studies have verified the detrimental

effects of sleep deprivation. In brain imaging

investigations of subjects who had sleep deprivation,

researchers discovered that the prefrontal cortex had

the most drop in metabolic rate. Lack of sleep may

impair one's capacity for conscious decision-making,

or executive function, as the prefrontal cortex is

crucial to this process (Barnes et al., 2011). Zhang et

al. (2024) also pointed out that sleep deprivation can

significantly affect people ’ s decision-making

ability, memory and emotions, and showed that sleep

deprivation can effectively promote sales in live

broadcast rooms and stimulate consumers’ impulse

purchases. This reflects that the effects of sleep

deprivation are supported by different disciplines.

Mullett-Gillman et al. (2015) examined TSD and

pointed out that sleep up late will modify economic

strategy by changing the choice strategy. TSD

resulted in an overall decline in choosing strategy in

the gains domain, which was caused by both an

increase in satisficing information (pWIN) and a drop

in maximizing information (rEV). Instead than

reducing the amount of information used in economic

decision-making overall, TSD caused participants to

rely on different types of information. There is also a

certain negative feedback impact from sleep

deprivation itself and the loss of self-control

(Exelmans et al., 2017). Participants' executive

function scores dropped dramatically following sleep

deprivation, which showed up as reduced planning

and decision-making skills, among other things

(Pesoli et al., 2022). Lack of sleep impairs one's

capacity to control one's emotions. People who don

not get enough sleep are more or less sensitive to

emotional cues, which makes it harder for them to

control and regulate their emotions. When faced with

stress and difficulties, this could result in increased

emotional dysregulation, which would then affected

their social relationships and productivity at work

(Shermohammed et al., 2020). In a similar vein,

William D.S. (2010) noted in earlier studies that sleep

deprivation can have a special impact on cognitive

processes that depend on emotional information.

Sleep deprivation leads to poor memory, schematic

thinking, which can lead to bad decisions, and mood

disturbances, symptoms that coincide with a

slowdown in the metabolism of brain tissue,

especially in the motor language centers, prefrontal,

frontal, and occipital cortices, and thalamus (Orzeł-

Gryglewska, 2010). Namni et al. (2009) used chronic

sleep restriction experiments to simulate the type of

sleep loss experienced by many people whose

illnesses and lifestyles lead to sleep fragmentation

and premature sleep loss, and showed that sleep loss

specifically affects cognitive functions, including

working memory, executive attention and vigilance,

Quantitative Analysis on Late-Night Impulse Buying Among Young People

443

psychomotor and cognitive speed, and higher-order

cognitive skills.

The above studies point out that sleep deprivation

can lead to a decrease in self-control and affect

decision-making. However, they did not further

explore the mechanism between staying up late and

impulsive consumption. The article which endeavors

to address the gap in this field will further focus on

young people aged 18-25 and study the relationship

between staying up late and impulsive consumption,

and offer a fresh viewpoint for researching consumer

behavior and the digital economy.

3 REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF

LATE-NIGHT CONSUMPTION

IMPULSIVITY

3.1 Data Sources

The research utilized a quantitative approach and

collected data via a structured questionnaire to

investigate the late-night impulsive consuming

behavior of young adults aged 18-25. A total of 113

survey results were gathered, with the majority of the

questionnaire being distributed on Credamo and WJX

to youth groups in various geographical areas. In the

questionnaire, the following variables are mainly

collected: The habit of staying up late, shopping

decision speed, income, the influence of promotional

activities and the impact of emotion. The details of

these variables will be further explained in the

following sections.

3.2 The Introduction of Variables

3.2.1 Dependent Variables

The dependent variable of the paper is shopping

decision speed (Shopping_Speed), which is divided

into three levels (Thinking over 1 hour, Thinking

under 1 hour, Quick purchase). To simplify statistics

and analysis, each level will be assigned a number

from 1 to 3 in sequence. The larger the number, the

shorter the shopping decision speed it represents. And

Immediate purchase is considered impulse

consumption.

3.2.2 Independent Variables

The habit of staying up late (Sleep_Habit): In the

present study, Sleep_Habit means how late people

usually stay up, it is associated with sleep deprivation.

The study will further examine that whether later

sleep time affect brain and make more impulsive

decisions. As the dependent variable, it is also

allocated a number to refer your habit of staying up

late, and the specific reference is as Table 1:

Table 1. The coding of Sleep_Habit

Sleep_Habi

Coding

Before 23:00 1

23:00-1:00 2

1:00-3:00 3

After 3:00 4

3.2.3 Control Variables

Income: It is obvious that one of the factors affecting

shopping decision speed is income. Consequently,

income is included as a control variable. It is sorted

as Table 2:

Table 2. The coding of Income

Income Coding

< 500 Yuan 1

500-1000 Yuan 2

1000-2000 Yuan 3

2000-5000 Yuan 4

5000+ Yuan 5

The influence of promotional

activities(Promotion): Merchants often use

promotional activities to attract consumers.

Regarding as external factor, this article will explore

the impact of promotional activities on inducing

impulse buying. 0 means not affected, 1 means

affected.

The impact of emotion(Emotion): Sometimes

people will shop without a reason just because they

like it. So the impact of emotion will be regarded as

internal factor. Lack of sleep can affect healthy

people's mood and cognition (Thompson et al., 2022).

Tomaso et al. (2021) also refer to the impact of sleep

deprivation on emotions. This essay will discuss

whether this preference will be amplified to promote

impulse buying when you are in a state of staying up

late. Consistent with promotional activities,

unaffected is marked as 0 and affected is marked as

PRMC 2025 - International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication

444

3.3 The Descriptive Descriptions of

Variabl es

Table 3. The results of the descriptive descriptions

Variable Obs Min Max Mean Std.Dev.

Shopping_Spee

113 1 4 2.11 0.712

Sleep_Habi

113 1 3 2.30 0.823

Income 113 1 5 3.86 1.149

Promotion 113 0 1 0.70 0.461

Emotion 113 0 1 0.69 0.464

From Table 3, this paper show that both shopping

decision speed and the habit of staying up late are in

a medium state, and there are certain differences

between individuals. And the income of the

respondents is generally high and varies greatly from

person to person. Promotions and the emotional

influence also have an impact on most respondents.

3.4 Benchmark Linear Regression

Table 4. The results of baseline model

Model

Variable

(1)

Shoppin

Spee

(2)

Shoppin

Spee

Intercep

1.290***

(0.287)

0.488

(0.352)

Sleep_Habi

_______ 0.366***

(0.102)

Income 0.165**

(0.063)

0.192**

(0.060)

Promotion -0.038

(0.159)

0.036

(0.152)

Emotion 0.581***

(0.158)

0.400*

(0.158)



0.169 0.258

Adjusted R



0.146 0.231

F 7.396

(p < 0.001)

9.402

(p < 0.001)

113 113

Note: p < 0.001(***), p < 0.01(**), p < 0.05(*)

The linear model of this paper is shown below:

Shopping_Speed = β



+ β



Sleep_Habit +



control



means the estimated coefficient obtained from the

linear regression, while control



refers to each

control variable.

Model(1) represents the baseline model that does

not contain core independent variable(Sleep_Habit).

Table 3 shows that Income and Emotion have a

significant positive impact in this case, but promotion

has an insignificant negative impact. The f value and

p value show that the overall regression model is

significant at this time, which means that the results

are effective (See Table 4).

In Model(2), the regression results show some

changes when Sleep_Habit is added. Consistent with

the hypothesis, Sleep_Habit has a significant positive

impact on Shopping_Speed, as the core independent

variable. It means that the later people stay up, the

quicker shopping decision people will make. For

income and promotion, Adding Sleep_Habit increase

their estimated coefficient, which is equivalent to

amplifying their positive effects on shopping decision

speed. However, the effect of promotion is still not

significant. It is also worth noting that after adding

Sleep_Habit, the influence and significance of the

emotional effect both decrease. The fact that the

effect of emotional influence is absorbed by the habit

of staying up late may show that there is a certain

relationship between the two, that is, staying up late

itself will affect consumers' emotions, thereby

affecting the speed of shopping decisions. These also

support the previous conclusion that staying up late

will affect the brain, which in turn affects self-control

and decision-making ability, and ultimately makes

people behave more impulsively. The increase in the

f-value of Model(2) indicates that its overall

regression model is more statistically significant than

that of Model(1). The increase in also increases the

explanatory power of the model. These also further

reflect that Sleep_Habit and Shopping_Speed are

closely related.

3.5 Ordinal Regression

Table 5. The results of ordinal regression

Variable Parameter Estimates

Intercep

_______

Sleep

Habi

1.121***

(0.318)

Income 0.556**

(0.176)

Promotion 0.056

(0.425)

Quantitative Analysis on Late-Night Impulse Buying Among Young People

445

Emotion 1.020*

(0.431)

Pseudo R



0.300

(Nagelkerke)

F 34.128

(p < 0.001)

113

Note: p < 0.001(***), p < 0.01(**), p < 0.05(*)

In this study, shopping decision speed, staying up late

habits and income are defined as ordered variables,

and promotion and emotional impact are defined as

dummy variables. The use of ordinal regression can

further test the significance of these variables on

shopping decision speed and the robustness of the

results.

The data in the above Table 5 show that the results

of the ordinal regression are basically consistent with

the results of the benchmark regression. The habit of

staying up late, income and emotional influence still

show significant positive effects, while the impact of

promotion on shopping decision speed is still weak.

Pseudo and F also show that the model has a certain

explanatory power and is significant overall.This

further verifies its robustness.

3.6 Interaction Test

In previous studies, it was found that income has a

significant positive impact on shopping decision

speed. However, in order to avoid the influence of

income as a confounding variables on the

independent variable of staying up late, this study

continues to use interaction tests to verify whether

income affects the influence of staying up late on

shopping decision speed.

Table 6. The results of interaction test

Variable B SE

VIF

Sleep_habi

0.373 0.103 3.623 <

0.001

1.144

Income 0.193 0.060 3.192 0.002 1.025

Sleep_Income

0.043

0.088 -

0.490

0.625 1.067

Note: Sleep_Income = Centered_Sleep_Habit *

Centered_Income

Centered_Sleep_Habit = Sleep_Habit -

MEAN(Sleep_Habit)

Centered_Income= Income - MEAN(Income)

In Table 6, the central variable is first calculated

to reduce the impact of collinearity to ensure the

validity of the experimental results. Then the

interaction term Sleep_Income is constructed and

OLS regression is performed. The data in the table

shows that the p value is 0.625, so income has no

significant moderating effect on the relationship

between staying up late and shopping speed. That is,

regardless of income, people who stay up late may

make shopping decisions in a similar way.

4 CONCLUSION

This paper examines the late-night impulse

consumption behavior of young people, focusing on

the impact of staying up late on impulse consumption

decisions. Through regression analysis of the

questionnaire, this paper found that the habit of

staying up late has a significant impact on impulsive

consumption decisions. The later you stay up late, the

more likely you are to make impulsive decisions. In

addition, the article also noted that the role of

emotional influence is affected by the habit of staying

up late, which shows that staying up late affects

people's emotions and thus affects shopping behavior,

which also supports the previous theory of sleep

deprivation. And most people are influenced by both

promotions and their income, but the latter is more

important than the former.

This study provides suggestions for merchants on

how to better invest time in sales activities in the

current digital economy era to obtain higher profits.

This constitutes the practical contribution of this

study.

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