Credit card spending could increase on seeing luxury goods

Australians buying goods with their credit card could rise if they follow the development uncovered by a recent report.

Australians who regularly use their credit card for impulse purchases may be intrigued to hear about the results of a recent study.

Research by the Harvard Business School randomly assigned two groups of students to luxury or non-luxury goods, gave them the title of chief executive of a company and asked them to think up scenarios that could occur, Reuters reports.

The psychological research discovered that people who were attached to the luxury goods were more likely to endorse a new vehicle that could harm the environment, compared to the people assigned to the non-luxury goods.

Researchers Roy Chua, of Harvard, and Xi Zou, an assistant professor at London Business School, said that the results inferred that when the subjects were "primed with luxury, people endorsed self-interested decisions".

However, Australians who switch to an Aussie Mastercard, as recommended by Aussie executive chairman John Symond last month, could be in a position to purchase some luxury goods, without feeling the guilt of high interest payments.

By Mark Hornby