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.