消费者选择中后悔和不确定性的作用研究

Study of impacts from regret and uncertainty on consumer choice

研究当消费者对产品绩效的期望不确定性时,后悔如何影响消费选择的动态变化.数学分析和实验结果表明,当消费者观察或体验到的各个产品选项的表现与原先的期望相吻合,风险厌恶型消费者倾向于提高对初始期望绩效不确定性较高的产品的购买意愿,而风险喜好型消费者倾向于降低对该产品的购买意愿.另外,期望绩效水平的不确定性对消费选择的影响会随消费者经验值的增加而减小.研究成果弥补了现有期望差异理论对解释消费行为动态变化的不足.因此,为了更加全面地理解在多选项选择问题中后悔对消费选择的动态影响,管理者需要考虑备选产品在期望绩效水平不确定性上的差异、相关消费市场的顾客风险偏好构成、消费者的购买经验等特征.

The paper aims to investigate how consumer choice probability is updated by experienced regret when consumer expectations are viewed as expectations. Theoretically and empirically, we show that when zero disconfirmation is experienced for each alternative in the consideration set, risk-averse consumers tend to increase their choice intention for the alternative with higher performance uncertainty, but risk-seeking consumers tend to decrease their choice intention for this alternative. In addition, the effect of performance uncertainty will be moderated as experience accumulates. The findings provide a great advancement over the expectancy disconfirmation model. Managerially, to gain a better understanding of the impact of regret on changing consumer choice, we should take into account market features such as performance uncertainty between competing alternatives, composition of consumers in terms of their risk attitudes, and consumer experience with the product.