THE INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS OF SELF-REWARD ON IMPULSE BUYING ON SOCIAL MEDIA: A STIMULUS-ORGANISM-RESPONSE ANALYSIS OF ANTICIPATED GRATIFICATION, HEDONIC BROWSING, AND TRAIT SELF-CONTROL

Abstract

Social-commerce environments have made impulse purchasing frictionless, and a growing share of consumers describe these purchases as things they deserve or as a way to feel better rather than as responses to product need. This study examines self-reward as a psychological mechanism behind impulse buying on social media, and asks through what intervening states it operates and what restrains it. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response framework and self-regulation theory, a moderated parallel-mediation model was estimated in which self-reward motivation influences impulse buying through anticipated emotional gratification and hedonic browsing, with trait self-control moderating the organism-to-response paths. Survey data were collected from 428 Indonesian social-commerce shoppers between September 2025 and January 2026 and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling in SmartPLS 4 with 5,000 bootstrap subsamples. Self-reward motivation predicts anticipated gratification (beta = 0.601) and hedonic browsing (beta = 0.558), both of which in turn predict impulse buying (beta = 0.319 and 0.402). The two indirect paths together account for 70.5 per cent of the total effect, with hedonic browsing the stronger conduit; the direct path is weak but significant (beta = 0.174). Trait self-control significantly attenuates the hedonic-browsing-to-impulse relationship (interaction beta = -0.163) but does not moderate the gratification path (beta = -0.047, p = 0.284). The model explains 54.8 per cent of variance in impulse buying. Findings indicate that self-reward rarely triggers purchase directly; it manufactures an affective and browsing state that does, and self-control governs enactment rather than desire.