怀旧对享乐品和实用品消费决策的影响

The Impact of Nostalgia on Consumers' Choice between Hedonic and Utilitarian Products

怀旧激发个体对感觉探索的需求,进而在选择享乐品与实用品的消费决策中倾向采用感性的决策方式而偏好享乐品。本文采用五组研究对理论假设进行了检验。研究一、研究二和研究三使用不同的怀旧操纵和享乐品实用品选择/评价情景,发现怀旧促进消费者对享乐品的偏好;研究四检验了感性决策方式在怀旧对享乐品和实用品选择影响中的中介机制;研究五发现怀旧对享乐品和实用品选择的影响作用仅对低理性决策方式的个体存在,对高理性决策方式的个体该作用消失。

Nostalgia, which is defined as a sentimental longing for a personally experienced and valued past, serves a self-oriented function, existential function and sociality function. This paper proposed that nostalgia activated the motivation of sensory exploration and impelled people to follow their feelings when choosing between hedonic and utilitarian products. Specifically, nostalgia promoted people to choose hedonic product rather than utilitarian product. This effect was mediated by affect-based thinking, and moderated by personal lay rationalism. The predictions were supported through five studies. Using different nostalgia manipulations, Study 1 and Study 2 showed that nostalgia participants were more likely to choose hedonic product(vs. utilitarian product) than participants from control group, which supported our main hypothesis. Study 3 manipulated a same chocolate as a hedonic or utilitarian product to measure people's preference for hedonic and utilitarian products, excluding the alternative explanation brought by using different product categories in previous studies. The Godiva chocolate was framed either as hedonic product(as snack) or utilitarian product(to provide energy for exercise). The results indicated that the nostalgia effect was significant when the product was manipulated as hedonic product, but no significant effect was found when the product was manipulated as utilitarian product. Study 4 tested the mediation effect of affect-based thinking among the nostalgia's effect on hedonic vs. utilitarian preference. The last study, study 5, tested the moderation effect of the lay rationalism. The results confirmed the moderation of lay rationalism: for people with low lay-rationalism, who often used affect and feelings to make decisions, the effect of nostalgia on product preference was replicated. However, for people with high lay-rationalism, who often used reasons and logical reasoning to make decisions and resists the impact of emotion or feelings, the effect of nostalgia on product preference was eliminated. This finding contributes to the nostalgia literature, and refills the gap of nostalgia's influence on consumer behavior. There are also some practical implications drawing from this finding. On one hand, companies should be careful when using nostalgia as a communication tactic, because nostalgia has difference effects on different types of products. On the other hand, companies can use nostalgia as a marketing tactic for promoting hedonic products.