Kiruthika Murali
The rapid expansion of social media platforms has fundamentally transformed consumer behavior by creating highly interactive digital environments that influence purchasing decisions and psychological well-being. While social media offers numerous benefits for communication and information sharing, excessive engagement has contributed to addictive usage patterns that may encourage impulsive and compulsive consumption behaviors. Among the psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship, social comparison has emerged as a significant cognitive process through which individuals evaluate themselves against others' curated online lifestyles, potentially stimulating materialistic aspirations and excessive purchasing tendencies. Despite increasing scholarly attention, limited research has comprehensively examined the mediating role of social comparison in the relationship between social media addiction and compulsive buying behaviour using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). This study aims to investigate the direct effect of social media addiction on compulsive buying behaviour and to examine whether social comparison mediates this relationship. The study proposes a conceptual model grounded in Social Comparison Theory and the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S–O–R) framework, explaining how excessive social media use stimulates psychological comparison processes that subsequently influence compulsive purchasing decisions. A quantitative research design is adopted using a structured questionnaire administered to active social media users. Data are analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling to evaluate the measurement model, structural relationships, and mediation effects among the study constructs.