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Consumer Behavior Towards Credit Card Usage

Decent Essays

Journal of Management and Marketing Research

Consumers and credit cards: A review of the empirical literature
Phylis M. Mansfield Penn State University – Erie Mary Beth Pinto Penn State University – Erie Cliff A. Robb University of Alabama ABSTRACT Research in the area of consumer credit card attitude and behavior has provided an abundance of literature in the business, psychology, and public policy fields. Beginning in the 1960s, the work revolved around descriptive characteristics and evolved as scholars probed deeper by investigating relationships between credit cards and psychological constructs, and the onships need for consumer policy. While the scope of credit card research has broadened, there is a need to pause and reflect on …show more content…

The senior citizen market has also captured the attention of credit card marketers due to its impressive size and buying power. Various reasons have been offered for this rising trend in senior citizen credit card debt and bankruptcy, including increased health care costs, gambling, lower interest rates on investment, the loss of jobs before planned retirement, and low retirement income (Dellutri, 2010). Another population of concern is the non-traditional consumer, such as developmentally-disabled individuals. In the late 1990s marketers were criticized for their predatory activities directed toward this segment of vulnerable consumers in an attempt to gain more market share (Cahill, 1998). Other than the work of Mansfield and Pinto (2008), there has been a lack of empirical studies with developmentallydisabled individuals due to the problem of inaccessibility. These social and economic concerns have raised the level of awareness that credit cards have both positive and negative consequences for individual consumers and for society as a whole.

Journal of Management and Marketing Research PURPOSE It was not until the late 1960s that consumer credit cards became a topic of academic research, appearing in the business literature. The early work revolved around descriptive literature. characteristics: number of cards and credit card usage (Hirschman, 1979; Hirschman & (Hirschman, Goldstucker, 1978; Plummer, 1971; Slocum & Mathews, 1970; Wise, Brown, & Cox,

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