孤独感与消费者决策研究:述评与展望

A Review and Prospects of Loneliness and Consumer Decision-making

本文系统梳理了营销学研究中涉及孤独感对消费者决策影响的文献。首先,我们介绍了本文的文献来源和孤独感相关研究的发展趋势;其次,本文依次厘清了孤独感的概念,明确了孤独感的分类,辨析了孤独感与相近概念的联系与区别,总结了孤独感的测量与操纵方法;再者,本文选取孤独感与消费者决策这一角度,从孤独感给消费者带来的矛盾性心理、补偿性心理与认知模式差异三个维度对高孤独感个体消费行为的特征进行了剖析,并从外部环境与个体内部两个角度找出了影响高孤独感消费者行为的因素;最后,本文指出了孤独感研究对于营销实践的启示,并展望了未来孤独感研究可能的思路与方向。本文旨在对孤独感与消费者决策相关研究进行梳理,搭建一个系统化的研究体系,并为后续孤独感与消费行为研究提供一个较为全面的理论框架。本文不仅为企业调整营销战略以回应高孤独感消费者群体的诉求提供了参考,也为帮助高孤独感群体化解孤独感从而提升消费者福祉提供了一定的启示。

Loneliness is universal.It exists widely and deeply affects every individual in the society.In recent years,the“loneliness epidemic”has overlapped with the COVID-19 epidemic.In order to control the spread of virus,policies such as lockdown of the city,centralized isolation,working at home,and keeping social distance have deepened people’s sense of loneliness.Meanwhile,with the emergence of social problems such as the aging of China’s population,the increasing pressure of urban life,rural leftover children and empty-nested senior citizens,the scale of lonely consumers continues to expand,and the consumption volume caused by loneliness also continues to grow,which shows that it is of great practical significance to clarify the impact of loneliness on individual behavior,business operation and social pattern.The theme of loneliness and consumer decision-making has been involved in marketing research,but it is scattered on the whole.In view of this,this paper focuses on summarizing the impact of loneliness on individual consumption behavior and decision-making by combing the previous literature on loneliness,aiming to provide a more comprehensive theoretical framework for the follow-up research on loneliness and consumption behavior,and provide a certain theoretical basis and reference for enterprise operation and strategic formulation.This paper mainly adopts the method of bibliometrics.First,through subject retrieval of keywords related to loneliness,and statistics and analysis based on Web of Science and CNKI,it outlines the research related to loneliness as a whole,and summarizes the measurement and experimental paradigm of loneliness.Then,starting from the theme of loneliness and consumer decision-making,it screens out relevant research and specific theories closely related to the theme for in-depth analysis and systematic sorting,and summarizes the characteristics of consumption behavior of individuals with high loneliness,as well as the factors affecting the consumption behavior of lonely individuals.Last,it sorts out the enlightenment of loneliness on marketing practice involved in relevant research,and looks forward to future directions.This paper has the following contributions:First,from the macro perspective,it clarifies the concept and classification of loneliness,reviews the trend of research on loneliness,distinguishes the relationship and difference between loneliness and similar concepts,and summarizes the measurement and manipulation methods of loneliness.Second,from the micro perspective of loneliness and consumer decision-making,it analyzes the characteristics of consumer behavior of individuals with high loneliness from the three dimensions of ambivalence psychology,compensatory psychology and cognitive differences brought by loneliness to consumers,and finds out the factors that affect consumer behavior of high loneliness from the two dimensions of external environment and internal individuals,providing a more comprehensive theoretical framework for subsequent research on loneliness and consumer behavior.Third,it starts from the two perspectives of marketing practice and theoretical value,summarizes the enlightenment of loneliness research on marketing practice from the perspectives of product,pricing,promotion and channel in turn,and also looks forward to the possible directions of loneliness and consumption decision-making.