未来自我连续性对非计划购买意愿的影响——一个有调节的中介模型

The Effect of Future Self-Continuity on Consumers’ Unplanned Purchasing Behavior——A Moderated Mediation Model

本文从未来时间视角探讨了未来自我连续性影响非计划购买行为的边界条件及其中介作用。结果表明,未来自我连续性对不同产品类型的非计划购买意愿影响存在差异。未来自我连续性高的消费者对实用品的非计划购买意愿更高,未来自我连续性低的消费者对享乐品的非计划购买意愿更高。未来自我连续性通过长期结果关注提升了消费者对实用品的非计划购买意愿。本文丰富了未来自我连续性的后效研究,深化了非计划购买的前因研究,并拓宽了消费者非计划购买的产品范畴。

Most of consumer’s purchasing behaviors are unplanned.Companies or stores use promotion strategies such as price discount or gifts to promote unplanned product purchasing.Past researches showed that marketing strategies and consumer’s features such as materialism affected consumer’s unplanned purchase behaviors.And furthermore,existing literatures found that consumers were more like to purchase hedonic product impulsively.However,some types of consumers are more likely to purchase unplanned utilitarian product.It is necessary to investigate deeply the factors that influence consumer’s unplanned purchasing behavior of utilitarian products,which have long-term benefits.How thinking of the futureself will affect consumers’ unplanned purchasing behavior of utilitarian products was neglected in consumer research.Thinking of the future self plays a very important role in consumers ’decisions.Future self-continuity is the degree of perceived connectedness between present self and future self.Future self-continuity influenced individuals’ health behavior,moral behavior and saving behaviors.This paper explored how future self-continuity affect consumers’ unplanned buying behavior.We proposed that future self-continuity may increase unplanned buying behavior of utilitarian products,through the mediation of future consequence consideration.Two experiments had been conducted to test the relationship between future self-continuity and unplanned buying behavior.In study 1,104subjects participated the 2(future self-continuity:high vs.low) *2(product type:utilitarian vs.hedonic) between-subjects experiment to test the main effect of future self-continuity on unplanned buying behavior and the moderation effect of product type.Further,we aimed to check the robust of the main effect and mediation effect of future consequence consideration.A 2(future self-continuity:high vs.low)*2(product category:utilitarian vs.hedonic) between-subjects experiment was conducted with 100 participants.The results of these four studies supports the hypotheses:The effect of future self-continuity on unplanned buying intentions was mediated by future consequence consideration;and this effect depended on product types.Participants with high self-continuity showed high unplanned buying intentions toward utilitarian products,while those with lower self-continuity showed higher unplanned buying intention toward hedonic products.Our research contributes to literature on unplanned buying behavior by focusing on consumers’ future self-perspective and utilitarian products.Firstly,this study provides a new perspective on unplanned buying behavior by introducing a new consumer boundary condition that is future selfcontinuity.Second,the research showed the positive relationship between future self-continuity and unplanned buying behavior of utilitarian products.Finally,this study demonstrated the mediation mechanism of the future consequence consideration between future self-continuity and unplanned buying behavior.Aside from these theoretical contributions,our research also present many practical implications for marketing strategy.