Sneaking the dark side of brand engagement into Instagram: The dual theory of passion

The dual theory of passion indicates harmonious passion leads to obsessive passion. This study contemplates that brand engagement (harmonious passion) leads to compulsive behavior (obsessive passion) in two ways: compulsive social media use and compulsive buying. Echoing prior passion research, we posit that three personality traits associated with compulsive behaviors—vanity, narcissism, and materialism—moderate these relationships, while technostress mediates the effect of compulsive social media use on compulsive buying. We conduct an online survey in the UK with 527 consumers, using structural equation modeling for data analysis. The results indicate vanity moderates the brand engagement → compulsive social media use relationship: as vanity intensifies, the effect of brand engagement on compulsive social media use increases. Likewise, narcissism moderates the compulsive social media use → compulsive buying relationship. In contrast, materialism moderates neither the brand engagement → compulsive social media use, nor the compulsive social media use → compulsive buying relationship.