Nada Jabbour Al Maalouf, Elie Sayegh, Dina Fattouh
Impulsive online buying has become increasingly prominent among young adult consumers, particularly in digital environments characterized by immediacy, convenience, and low-friction decision-making. This study examines the associations between Dark Triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), self-efficacy, impulsivity, and impulsive online buying intent among university students in Lebanon. Grounded in the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework and supported by Personality Theory, Social Cognitive Theory, and the Reference Point Model, the study conceptualizes personality traits and self-efficacy as internal psychological stimuli, impulsivity as the organismic state, and impulsive buying intent as the behavioral response. Using a quantitative cross-sectional design, data were collected from 369 university students through convenience sampling using a structured self-administered questionnaire with validated Likert-scale measures, and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The findings indicate that all three Dark Triad traits and self-efficacy are positively associated with impulsivity, while impulsivity is strongly associated with impulsive online buying intent and mediates these relationships. The study extends the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework by incorporating internal psychological characteristics as stimuli and offers novel evidence of a context-dependent positive association between self-efficacy and impulsivity in digital consumption settings.