Navigating Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and addiction to Online Impulse Purchases – A Malaysian take

Mental illness has been posited as one of the leading factors of online impulse purchases. The impact of impulse purchases caused by borderline personality disorder (BPD) is not clearly established in Malaysia, although Malaysia has among the highest spending consumers in the region, with mental illness increasing steadily in the community. The importance of identifying the effect of BPD on impulse buying is important because there is a need for intervention to eliminate the negative impact impulse buying has on finances, relationships, hoarding problems, wastage, and mental health in a person with BPD. The objective of this conceptual paper is to investigate existing literature on the level of impulse purchases of Malaysian consumers and their relation to mental illness, specifically borderline personality disorder (BPD), and propose a framework to depict the relations of selected factors. Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) Theory is adopted as the underpinning theory for the conceptual framework. The stimulus element is online shopping usage, the organism element is BPD, and the response element is impulse buying. The lack of research in Malaysia, despite the dire consequences of impulse buying by a person with BPD, points out that future empirical study is needed with progression to the development of intervention and prevention policies. Finally, the success factors for implementing the proposed framework and some thoughts on future research directions have been discussed.