Impact of early environmental unpredictability on impulsive consumption: Insights from life history theory

In recent years, with the convenience of shopping and the prevalence of consumerism, impulsive consumption-defined as spontaneous, unplanned purchases driven by immediate gratification-has become widespread, often leading to negative post-consumption impacts. This study examines early environmental unpredictability from a life history theory perspective to explore its predictive mechanisms on impulsive consumption. It investigates how early unpredictability shapes short-term reproductive effort (a proxy for fast life history strategies prioritizing immediate rewards), which influences future self-continuity (perceived connection to one's future self) and ultimately is associated with impulsive consumption behavior. Future self-continuity was selected as a mediator because it serves as a proximate psychological mechanism linking calibrated life history strategies to reduced delayed gratification (Hershfield, 2011). Current subjective socioeconomic status (SSS) was chosen as a moderator to capture perceived resource availability that may amplify impulsive tendencies in contexts of perceived environmental mismatch. Study 1 collected 414 valid questionnaires from Chinese adults (M_age = 26.18, SD = 4.85, 49.5% male), while Study 2 collected 398 valid questionnaires from a similar sample of Chinese adults. The results show that individuals who reported more unpredictability during their early life exhibit lower future self-continuity and a higher tendency towards impulsive consumption behaviors, with short-term reproductive effort partially mediating the link to future self-continuity but not to impulsive buying. Additionally, higher current SSS amplifies the direct association of early environmental unpredictability with impulsive consumption and the indirect path through future self-continuity, but does not moderate the path through short-term reproductive effort.