Intergroup threat,knowledge of the outgroup,and willingness to purchase ingroup and outgroup products: The mediating role of intergroup emotions

Established theories have acknowledged that intergroup threat is one of the key determinants of intergroup attitudes and behaviours, but how intergroup threat can affect consumer behaviour remains unclear. Here, four preregistered studies (total N = 988) examined the effect of intergroup threat (manipulated in terms of realistic and symbolic threats) on consumers’ willingness to purchase ingroup and outgroup products. In the context of China–West relations, we measured Chinese consumers’ willingness to purchase Chinese (ingroup) and Western (outgroup) products. These studies together revealed that realistic and symbolic threats (versus control) increased willingness to purchase ingroup products and decreased willingness to purchase outgroup products, regardless of the product category. Studies 3a and 3b also measured knowledge of the outgroup as a potential moderator, revealing that realistic threat (versus control) reduced willingness to purchase outgroup products only among individuals who had less knowledge of the outgroup. Furthermore, Study 3b showed that the intergroup threat manipulation indirectly influenced consumers’ willingness to purchase ingroup/outgroup products through increased anger and decreased hope. We discussed the contributions to the intergroup relations and consumer behaviour literature and the implications for transnational marketing practices, as well as the limitations of this research.     

Social meanings in Christmas consumption: an exploratory study of UK celebrants' consumption rituals

• Although much has been written about the celebration of Christmas from a variety of perspectives, limited attention has been paid in the consumer behaviour literature to understanding the behaviours of consumers surrounding this event. Apart from insights gained from prior work on consumption rituals and meanings of festivities, our knowledge of meaning creation through Christmas consumption is partial, and written mainly from a North American perspective. Since consumer behaviour is shaped by cultural and social contexts, understanding the relationship between consumption objects and the social meanings that consumers ascribe to them is a research imperative. This paper explores the ways in which the British Christmas is consumed as a shared consumption experience, by bringing together two different approaches taken by consumer researchers and sociologists to analysing social consumption patterns. These are drawn from structuralist and post‐structuralist thinking. The findings of an exploratory qualitative study are used to demonstrate how an enhanced understanding of consumption meanings associated with this particular cultural context can lead to new insights into how consumers create social meanings through special, as well as ordinary, behaviours.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Triangulating consumers' perceptions of payment systems by using social representations theory: A multi‐method approach

Social systems play a pivotal role in shaping customers' views, the adoption process and subsequent product diffusion for novel products. Perceptions of Austrian consumers regarding payment systems were assessed in a cross‐sectional analysis applying social representations theory. Social representations help to unravel the sources of individuals' attitudinal or perceptual similarities and differences, which often stem from inter‐group differences. In short, they are useful for the investigation of ‘deeper structure’ aspects of consumer behaviour, as has been shown in previous studies. This may be seen as a further step forward for marketing research, which operates largely on social phenomena. This study addresses the shortage of non‐cognitive‐based research in marketing by offering a methodological approach that uses triangulation on the basis of associative answers from social groups. A four‐step analytic design revealed that consumer groups transpose the abstract concept of payment systems into tangible objects and processes in a similar way; however, their social background impacted which value was attached to established as well as new means of payment. Cash is still seen as the prototypical form of payment; newer forms, such as credit cards or ATM cards, appear already in the periphery of representations, urgently needing well‐concerted marketing efforts to become recognized as substitutes for cash. From a managerial view, the research employs social phenomena as a basis for segmenting natural rather than nominal groups in order to better serve consumers' needs in an increasingly connected social reality. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Taking sustainable fashion mainstream: Social media and the institutional celebrity entrepreneur

There is a growing imperative to address the negative environmental impact of fashion and an increased awareness of sustainability issues: the sustainable fashion concept (SFC). However, while consumers are becoming more aware and concerned about sustainability, this is not resulting in the purchase of sustainable fashion products in preference to “mainstream” goods. This so‐called attitude–behaviour gap is well documented in academic literature, and yet there is a lack of research into potential methods of disrupting this phenomenon. This study seeks to redress this by examining the potential influence of celebrity institutional entrepreneurs (CIEs) to raise awareness of the SFC and to therefore guide and change consumer behaviour towards more sustainable practice. CIEs are celebrities who use their social position to espouse their values with the intention of influencing institutional habits and behaviours. In this case, Emma Watson is identified as an appropriate and credible proponent, and her @the_press_tour Instagram account was used to examine her influence. A netnographic investigation of this account was conducted in combination with eight in‐depth interviews with account followers to examine attitudes and actions towards sustainable fashion. Findings showed that the account had partial impact on consumer engagement with the SFC in that it led to the participants being more likely to discuss and consider the issues around sustainable fashion; however, it had no significant impact on purchases of sustainable fashion. The study concludes that CIEs can impact the attitudes of mainstream consumers towards sustainable fashion; however, further research is required to determine any long‐term influence.     

Signaling can increase consumers' willingness to pay for green products. Theoretical model and experimental evidence

Many green products are costlier than their nongreen counterparts, for a variety of reasons. This “green premium” is a key challenge marketers face when targeting consumers with these green products. A potential solution to this issue is provided by signaling theory. According to the theory, green products can have a signaling benefit. This benefit acts as an incentive for consumers to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products that can even out their price disadvantage (the green signaling hypothesis). Previous studies have tested the green signaling hypothesis with hypothetical buying decisions. The research at hand tests the green signaling hypothesis with incentive‐compatible purchase decisions in a laboratory setting with student subjects. As predicted, subjects exhibit a higher willingness to pay for green products when the product choice (a nongreen product vs. a costlier green counterpart) is public rather than private. The results also suggest that green signalers are treated more favorably in social interactions. The main result is that a signaling benefit can even out moderate green premiums. One implication of this is the idea that marketers should design green products that are costlier than their nongreen counterparts in a way that renders them clearly recognizable as green. At the same time, marketers should avoid marketing everyday green products with a high green premium.     

Consumer food waste behaviour in universities: Sharing as a means of prevention

In order to tackle food waste at the prevention stage of the waste hierarchy, an understanding of behaviour that leads to wastage is required. This article examines consumer food waste behaviour in a university setting and the implications for encouraging sharing as a means of mitigating food waste. The embodied and embedded nature of consumption and wasteful behaviours are contended, giving explanation to the transition of food into waste. By undertaking a mixed‐method study and a social media‐based intervention, behaviour that causes food to be wasted within a campus environment is discussed, furthering the current domestic focus of research. The paper argues that consumer food waste behaviour can be better understood by focusing on the practices, routines and habits of consumers given the hidden nature of the food waste issue. A number of barriers are also presented regarding the sharing of food as a means of food waste prevention. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumer reactions to the decreased usage message: The role of elaborative processing

This research examines consumer reactions to an emerging trend among corporate social responsibility initiatives—the promotion of decreased usage of the company's own core products. The results across three experiments suggest that the presence of a decreased usage message that highlights incongruity between the marketing message and the company's goals leads to negative company evaluations. The authors demonstrate that elaborative processing underlies these effects by examining the moderating role of the need for cognition and cognitive load. Further, perceived incongruity and cognitive elaboration mediate the findings. The implications for marketers and consumers are discussed.     

消费者新产品采纳的特征

成功的新产品开发是企业获取竞争优势的重要因素,但创新产品并非总能得到市场的接受,大多数的新产品扩散往往以失败告终。因此,业界和学界对新产品采纳问题进行了诸多探索。新产品采纳过程是指创新产品从被设计制造出来,到最终被消费者或潜在消费者认识和采用的过程。对相关研究综述发现：以Rogers创新扩散模型为依据,按采纳时间和特征的不同,新产品采纳者可以系统分为早期采纳者和晚期采纳者,二者之间主要从创新性、产品理解和易感性三个维度进行区分。具体来说,早期采纳者具有高创新性、高产品理解和低易感性;晚期采纳者具有低创新性、低产品理解和高易感性。在此基础上,我们探究了各维度下影响消费者新产品采纳的具体因素。未来研究可以从这三个维度出发,结合已有研究的不足以及当前环境、消费特点等进行拓展。     

Evolution and trends in consumer behaviour: Insights from Journal of Consumer Behaviour

The way consumers behave is fundamental to marketing. Journal of Consumer Behaviour (JCB) is an international journal dedicated to publishing the latest developments of consumer behaviour. To gain an understanding of the evolution and trends in consumer behaviour, this study presents a retrospective review of JCB using bibliometric analysis. Using bibliographic records of JCB from Scopus, this study finds that consumer behaviour research in JCB has grown substantially in terms of collaboration (co-authorships), global reach (countries), productivity (publications), and impact (citations). The major themes explored by consumer behaviour research in JCB include consumer information processing, consumption communities, consumption value, sustainable consumption, intergenerational consumer behaviour, consumer-brand relationship, consumer ethics, and conditional relationships in consumer behaviour. The most recent consumer behaviour research in JCB has considered externalities such as the COVID-19 pandemic and focused on themes such as consumer ethics and sustainable consumption in line with the global movement toward environmental social governance (ESG) and sustainable development goals (SDGs).     

Exploring the role of discourse in marketing and consumer research

This paper reviews the development of discourse‐based analysis in marketing and consumer research and outlines the application of various forms of discourse analysis (DA) as an approach. The paper locates this development alongside broader disciplinary movements and restates the potential for critical DA (CDA) in marketing and consumer behaviour research. We argue that discourse‐based approaches have considerable potential and application particularly in terms of supporting disciplinary reflexivity and research criticality. A discursive lens offers novel ways of understanding marketing as a subject/discipline as well as how marketing academics conceive and investigate objects of marketing inquiry. The objectives of this paper are fourfold: to outline the development of discourse and text‐based studies in marketing and consumer research; to reveal how this has shaped, framed and limited the application and utilisation of DA in particular ways; to synthesise the main principles of DA generally and CDA specifically; and highlight how these approaches could be applied to a range of marketing and consumer behaviour issues and contexts. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumer Response to a Prosocial Marketing Initiative: The Case of Discount Stores and Gun Sales

This research examined factors that influence how consumers respond to prosocial marketing initiatives. Specifically, consumers' attitudes toward the societal role of corporations were examined within the context of a prosocial (an activity perceived by the consumer to benefit society) marketing action being undertaken by a corporation. The results indicate that whether a consumer believed a firm should be managed primarily for the benefit of the common good (e.g., the greater community, consumers, employees) or managed primarily for the benefit of investors significantly influenced the likelihood of store patronage. Perceived ethicality of the retailer's action also mediated the relationship between consumers' attitudes toward the societal role of corporations and the likelihood of store patronage. The marketing and societal implications of these results are discussed.     

Learning to love the older consumer

This paper examines how and why marketing has largely ignored the older consumer and concentrated on younger targets. It explores some of the myths of the older consumer and through examining recent research in the USA and the UK makes a plea for accepting the older consumer as still very much in the main stream of marketing. It also explores how society constructs age and how older people may wish to see themselves. While age related myopia is unsatisfactory for both consumers and marketing, older consumers may express a wide range of identities, making them a potentially complex target for marketing. The paper suggests that more research is needed to explore the different motives and identities of these important consumers with a view to better meeting their needs in terms of appropriate products, messages and media. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Consumer intention to purchase and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from an experiment in an entrepreneurial context

Previous research has addressed the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on consumer purchase intention (CPI). However, most of the empirical evidence is based on the analysis of mature large-scale firms; much less examines the effects of CSR initiatives on CPI in entrepreneurial contexts. In this study, we address this gap by investigating whether entrepreneurial start-ups' declaration of CSR engagement affects consumers' purchasing intent. We assert that consumers may consider firms' CSR engagement as a signal for unobserved product quality. We exploit a vignette experimental approach to test our theoretical predictions. In our experiment, participants received online invitations to subscribe to an electronic catalog that advertised various products supplied by entrepreneurial start-ups. The invitations are of five types, some of which presenting different CSR-related information on the suppliers to the participants. Overall, we find that the displayed information on CSR engagement promotes participants' willingness to subscribe to the electronic catalog, indicating that consumers will increase their purchase intentions for ethically oriented suppliers. Moreover, we find that among all the initiatives, external CSR initiatives (social contribution and environmental responsibility) promote consumers' intentions to purchase most effectively. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to explore the effects of different CSR initiatives on entrepreneurial start-ups in entrepreneurship literature. We highlight the heterogeneous effects of CSR initiatives on CPI, contributing new insights to research on CSR and consumer behavior.     

消费决策过程如何彰显社会地位?基于最优化决策策略的视角

彰显社会地位是消费者行为的一项基本动机。以往的消费心理学研究大量聚焦产品特征如何彰显社会地位(即令观察者产生高社会地位的推断), 却很少探讨消费决策过程这一购买决策中不可忽视的重要因素对社会地位推断有何影响。本研究试图构建一个基于最优化决策过程信息的社会地位推断模型, 系统探讨: (1)最优化决策过程能否及如何彰显消费者的社会地位; (2)彰显社会地位动机是否为消费者进行最优化决策的原因之一; (3)最优化决策过程如何通过社会地位推断影响观察者后续的消费行为。本研究将为社会地位推断研究提供新的视角, 扩展最优化决策研究的外延, 并从全新的角度揭示最优化决策的内涵。     

Cognitive anthropology and the problem‐solving behaviour of green consumers

• This paper examines the contextual aspects of problem‐solving behaviour of ‘green’, environmentally oriented consumers. It is argued that by profiling the consumer in cognitive terms, a more robust understanding of green consumer behaviour can be provided.
• To illustrate this, we draw upon the cognitive anthropological concepts of practical thinking and bricolage. These are used to integrate ‘context’ into a model of cognition via qualitative, interview‐based research which examined how consumers assess the environmental friendliness of supermarket products.
• In order to increase external validity two respondent groups were compared, British and German consumers. Different levels of successful and unsuccessful practical thinking and bricolage were identified.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Approach or avoid? The effect of regulatory focus on consumer behavioural responses to personal selling attempts

While salespeople use adaptive influence tactics in interactions with consumers, consumers can act as goal-oriented individuals attempting to manage those interactions. Prior research has documented a repertoire of consumer response behaviours, but little is known about the motivational forces. The present research examines the effects of regulatory focus on consumer behavioural tendencies in response to personal selling attempts. The findings suggest that the more promotion-focused consumers are more likely to engage in goal-seeking behaviours. This research not only addresses a void in the literature, but more importantly, sheds light on motivational antecedents driving consumer behaviours in customer–salesperson interactions.     

How to arrange assortments available in green alternatives: Displaying products by green attributes

Previous research has investigated how product display affects consumer choices. However, less is known about the effect of product display on green consumption when products are displayed by green attributes. Through three studies with 610, 661, and 208 valid participants, respectively, the present research demonstrates that displaying products by green attributes render green products more recognizable to the consumer, thereby inducing green choices from among the consideration sets. The positive effect is enhanced by providing green category labels on products. However, the positive effect of product display by green attributes weakens in the case of consumers with high brand familiarity. The findings contribute theoretically and practically to the research on promoting green choice through environmental cues such as product display.     

To do or to have? Exploring the effects of social exclusion on experiential and material purchases

Social exclusion is widespread in our modern society. In the context of marketing, consumers who are excluded will choose specific products to mitigate the negative consequences of exclusion. This research examined the effect of social exclusion on consumer preferences. Three experimental studies were conducted to test whether consumers experiencing social exclusion would choose specific kinds of purchases. The results of the three studies provided convergent support for the notion that consumers who feel socially excluded exhibit a preference for experiential purchases over material purchases. It therefore appears that experiential purchases can more effectively compensate for the relational needs caused by social exclusion. The effect was stronger for socially excluded individuals exhibiting more interdependent self‐construal than for those exhibiting a more independent self‐construal. These results indicate that social impact is an antecedent of experiential purchases, and they shed light on an important mechanism to alleviate the negative effects of social exclusion.     

Narratives of ‘green’ consumers — the antihero,the environmental hero and the anarchist

• Environmental policy makers and marketers are attracted by the notion of green consumerism. Yet, green consumerism is a contested concept, allowing for a wide range of translations in everyday discursive practices.
• This paper examines how young consumers construct their images of green consumerism. It makes a close reading of three narratives reflecting available subject positions for young green consumers: the Antihero, the Environmental Hero and the Anarchist.
• It reveals problems in the prevailing fragmented, gendered and individualistic notions of green consumerism, and discusses implications for policy and marketing practitioners.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.