Depression, like sadness, is associated with increased self-focus (Ingram, 1990; Watkins & Teasdale, 2004) and a diminished sense of self-worth (Gotlib & Hammen, 1992; Watkins & Teasdale, 2001).

Another possible model is that sad and self-focused individuals experience reduced self-value or reduced sense of entitlement, and therefore value other things more by contrast.

Our working model (see Fig. 1) proposes that sad and self-focused individuals spend more on commodities than other people do because they seek self-enhancement.

According to mood-repair theories, individuals in a negative emotional state are predisposed to engage in mood-improving behaviors, such as helping other people, or potentially obtaining new commodities

By revealing that self-focus plays both a moderating and a mediating role in the relationship between sadness and spending, the findings connect James's (1890) concept of the material self to contemporary theories of emotion and decision making. Spending decisions have been addressed primarily by economic theories, but the present results highlight... See more

Results demonstrated that the misery-is-not-miserly effect occurs only when self-focus is high. That is, self-focus moderates the effect of sadness on spending.

that a variable can serve as both a moderator and a mediator for a single relationship. We found that self-focus plays both a moderating and a mediating role in the relationship between sadness and buying price. However, because we did not observe an effect of sadness on buying price when self-focus was low,

To test the hypothesized moderating role of self-focus, we conducted a regression analysis predicting buying price with emotion condition, self-focus score (centered), and their interaction term. Results revealed an Emotion Condition × Self-Focus interaction, b = 0.16, t (27) = 2.29, p = .03, p rep = .91 (see Fig. 2a). As hypothesized, tests of... See more

The primary goal of the present study was to test two main implications of our model. First, the study examined whether the misery-is-not-miserly effect depends on one's level of self-focus (i.e., does self-focus moderate the misery-is-not-miserly effect?). Second, the study tested whether self-focus explains the misery-is-not-miserly effect (i.e.,... See more