“力求相同”还是“与众不同”?偶发焦虑情绪对从众消费的影响

Pursue“Conformity”,or“Distinctiveness”?The Effects of Incidental Anxiety on Conformity Consumption

焦虑作为这个时代最为普遍的负面情绪,会如何影响个体的消费行为?综观已有研究,学者们对此探讨略显不足。本文聚焦从众消费行为,探讨偶发焦虑情绪对从众消费的作用机制以及边界条件。通过三个层层递进的实验,结果发现:偶发焦虑情绪(相比中性情绪)诱发更强的社会联系动机,进而提升从众消费。此外,消费者的代理-共享导向调节偶发焦虑情绪对从众消费的影响。具体而言,焦虑与从众消费的关系仅成立于共享导向消费者。对于代理导向消费者,偶发焦虑情绪并不会引起更高的社会联系动机,从而使焦虑与从众消费的关系被弱化。

While anxiety presents as one of the most pervasive negative feelings in our time,little is known about how and why it may affect consumer behaviors.To address this question,we propose an explanation that individuals'incidental anxiety(compared to neutral emotion)can encourage social connection motivation,which can be satisfied via conformity consumption.Further,the effect of incidental anxiety on conformity would be moderated by individuals'agency-communion orientation.Specifically,the main effect only persists among communal consumers and would be attenuated among agency-oriented consumers.We conducted a series of three experiments by varying measures and manipulations to provide convergent evidence to support our hypotheses.Contributions and implications are finally discussed.