ABSTRACT As global aging accelerates, supporting older adults' well‐being through meaningful social participation has become increasingly urgent. Social media communities offer older adults opportunities to expand their social networks beyond existing relationships. Yet, for many, these communities are unfamiliar environments where successful integration requires continuous socialization. Although research has examined socialization in formal organizational settings, these insights have rarely been applied to how older adults navigate informal online environments or the value they derive from social media community participation. This study examines how continuous socialization tactics enacted by social media communities shape different value dimensions older adults derive from online social participation and how these values subsequently influence online well‐being. A mixed‐methods approach combines qualitative (Study 1) and quantitative (Study 2) research. Study 1 identifies three tactics—informative content sharing, inclusive context framing, and social bond facilitating—and four value dimensions: information acquisition value, self‐worth affirmation value, immersive engagement value, and relational support value. Study 2 shows that these socialization tactics differentially influence these value dimensions, which in turn affect online well‐being. This research offers theoretical contributions and practical implications for supporting older adults' online social participation in an aging society.
ABSTRACT Prior research on chatbot anthropomorphism has often treated it as a unidimensional construct, producing inconsistent findings regarding how human‐like design cues shape user responses. This study conceptualizes anthropomorphism as a multidimensional higher‐order perception comprising three distinct forms of anthropomorphic attribution (physical, emotional, and autonomous) and examines how each dimension independently and interactively influences customer satisfaction with service chatbots. Drawing on the stereotype content model and expectancy violation theory, the study proposes that different anthropomorphism dimensions activate distinct evaluative pathways: physical and emotional cues primarily signal warmth, whereas autonomous cues primarily signal competence. A mixed‐method approach was employed across four studies, combining LLM‐based text analysis with experimental designs. Study 1 identifies the three dimensions from consumers' own descriptions of chatbot human‐likeness. Study 2 demonstrates that autonomous anthropomorphism uniquely drives satisfaction through perceived competence, whereas emotional anthropomorphism enhances perceived warmth, which does not translate into higher satisfaction in utilitarian service contexts, and physical anthropomorphism shows no significant effect on satisfaction. Study 3 reveals a counterintuitive interaction: the positive effect of autonomous anthropomorphism on satisfaction is attenuated when emotional anthropomorphism is high, suggesting that warmth‐signaling cues can undermine competence‐driven benefits in utilitarian service contexts. Study 4 replicates the interaction found in Study 3, and confirms that the attenuation happens in the translation of autonomous cues into competence perceptions and it is this diluted competence perception, not any change in warmth, that carried the interaction into satisfaction. By disentangling anthropomorphism into discrete dimensions and empirically testing their interplay, this research provides a structured lens through which previously mixed findings can be better understood. The findings challenge managers to prioritize autonomous capabilities over superficial human‐like traits when designing AI‐driven services, particularly in efficiency‐focused industries such as banking and e‐commerce.
ABSTRACT Social isolation is a major contributor to today's mental health problems, yet many individuals still do not seek professional psychological support. At the same time, the growth of digital platforms has encouraged consumers to adopt self‐management strategies, raising important questions about whether these tools help or hinder movement toward formal care. While loneliness is known to affect emotional well‐being, far less is understood about how it shapes perceptions of institutional and service‐related barriers, such as alienation from and trust in the healthcare system. Across one survey and two online experiments, we examine whether social loneliness is associated with alienation from the healthcare system and lower help‐seeking, and whether digital self‐management support can serve as a bridge toward renewed engagement with mental healthcare services. Results show that loneliness heightens feelings of alienation from the healthcare system, which reduces trust and discourages professional help‐seeking. However, this negative cycle can be interrupted: exposure to digital self‐management support can disrupt the link between loneliness and alienation, thereby preserving trust and willingness to seek professional care. These findings highlight the potential of digital tools as early catalysts for reconnecting socially isolated individuals with the mental healthcare system.
ABSTRACT When service failures and transgressions occur, consumers often look for someone to blame. In contexts like the sharing economy, are consumers more likely to attribute responsibility and blame to the individual gig worker or the organization? This research argues that responsibility and blame attribution depend on beliefs in personal responsibility and corporate distrust, both of which are predicted by political ideology—a managerially actionable predictor of consumer responses. Across three studies, consumers with a liberal (vs. conservative) political ideology exhibit differential attribution patterns, being more likely to blame sharing economy organizations when a gig worker transgresses. This effect is associated with liberals' weaker beliefs in personal responsibility and stronger corporate distrust. Importantly, providing a clear message emphasizing gig workers' independent status reduces liberals' tendency to blame organizations, given their weaker beliefs in personal responsibility, thereby increasing intentions to continue using the service. These findings link political ideology to organizational blame in the sharing economy and offer actionable strategies for addressing ideological differences in blame attribution after service failures and transgressions.
ABSTRACT This study introduces the Paradox of Escapism, exploring how the act of escaping reality can evolve from a short‐term avoidance strategy to a mechanism for self‐regulation and enhanced life satisfaction. Employing five rigorous, multimethod investigations, including qualitative interviews and sentiment analysis (Study 1), Structural Equation Modeling combined with Necessary Condition Analysis (Study 2, N = 521), and two Experimental manipulations of escapism, flow, and autonomy (Studies 3 and 4, N = 314, and N = 320), the research delineates the conditions under which escapism transitions from maladaptive avoidance to growth‐oriented behavior. Results indicate that while avoidance‐focused escapism may hinder self‐reflection, it facilitates coping and self‐awareness when it shifts into flow states, particularly under conditions of perceived high autonomy. Ultimately, the findings reposition escapism as a self‐regulatory process, with flow and autonomy serving as critical boundary conditions that transform psychological relief into opportunities for personal development.
ABSTRACT Sustainability information is difficult for consumers to evaluate because environmental performance represents a credence attribute. Although numerical sustainability claims have been shown to improve consumers' perceptions of sustainability communication, little is known about whether they influence product choice under realistic marketplace trade‐offs or through which decision processes these effects emerge. Drawing on signaling theory, this research examines whether numerical sustainability claims function as stronger marketplace signals and investigates how visual attention is associated with their influence on consumer choice. Two complementary studies were conducted: a choice‐based conjoint experiment ( N = 512) examining product choice and willingness to pay, and an eye‐tracking experiment ( N = 45) investigating visual attention during product evaluation. Results indicate that numerical sustainability claims were associated with higher consumer preference and willingness to pay than equivalent non‐numerical claims. Eye‐tracking results showed that although numerical claims attracted greater visual attention, attention to the claims alone did not explain product choice. Instead, numerical claims were associated with broader visual attention during product evaluation. The findings suggest that numerical sustainability claims help translate sustainability communication into consumer choice under competitive marketplace settings.
ABSTRACT Understanding food consumption behavior is a priority for nutritionists, policymakers, and marketers. This research highlights an overlooked aspect of such behavior, namely, the design of the tools used for consumption. We argue that the length of a cutlery item's handle, while holding the size of the functional part (e.g., spoon bowl) constant, can affect consumers' perceptions of motor fluency and eating pace, which in turn shape consumption quantity. Across seven studies and three supplementary studies ( N = 2506), we provide converging evidence that the cutlery handle prompts expectations about how fluency and eating speed perceptions unfold, and, through this mechanism, affects how much consumers expect to consume. The paper further examines the prevalence of the cutlery handle effect under relevant contextual factors, including product characteristics (healthy vs. unhealthy product category) and the situational context (eating in a hurry vs. not). The cutlery handle effect is more consistent when eating speed is situationally salient, such as under time pressure, and for healthy products. These findings illustrate how subtle design features of eating tools may affect consumers' anticipation of the eating process. From a managerial standpoint, cutlery design is part of a broader eating environment that shapes consumption experiences and quantity.
ABSTRACT Consumers do not always respond to service failures in the same way. While some quickly disengage after a mistake, others are willing to forgive. This study examines whether an upstream design choice—AI‐agent naming source—shapes consumers' affective reactions to recommendation failures through psychological ownership. Across five experiments, we show that consumer‐generated (vs. firm‐assigned) naming increases forgiveness after recommendation failures (Study 1) and that psychological ownership explains this effect (Study 2a). Study 2b further suggests that this ownership‐based pathway explains the effect beyond anthropomorphism. However, these effects depend on individual differences and shopping orientation. They are stronger among consumers with higher mine‐me sensitivity (Study 3) and differ by shopping orientation. Psychological ownership promotes forgiveness under hedonic orientation but has the opposite effect under utilitarian orientation (Study 4). Overall, this study highlights how pre‐failure design choices shape consumers' post‐failure responses to AI assistants.
ABSTRACT Depicting movement in static marketing stimuli, referred to as ‘implied motion’, is widely used across packaging, logos, and advertising, and multimodal brand communications. Despite growing evidence of its persuasive impact, the underlying psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions remain theoretically fragmented. This systematic review synthesizes 31 experimental studies and integrates the findings within the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion. The evidence shows that implied motion first enhances perceptual salience and attentional allocation. From there, its effects operate through two distinct routes. When accompanied by narrative context, implied motion facilitates central‐route elaboration through mental simulation, engagement, empathy, and narrative transportation, strengthening brand and product attitudes. Under rapid processing, it functions as a peripheral cue, triggering heuristic inferences (e.g., energy, freshness) and fluency, increasing purchase intention, willingness to pay, and choice. Both routes are moderated by consumer‐level factors (e.g., consumption goal, involvement) and design‐level factors (e.g., product type, brand‐motion fit). By integrating evidence across attention, elaboration, heuristic inference, and attitudinal and behavioural outcomes, this review provides a theoretically grounded account of how dynamic cues embedded in static visuals shape consumer judgment. Implications for marketing strategy and future research directions are discussed.
Despite the rise of circular fashion, buying brand-new garments remains the societal norm. This research identifies a cognitive bias hindering sustainable consumption: identity misforecasting, by which consumers mispredict how much a brand-new purchase will enhance their identity. Across four studies (N = 1,993) and an internal meta-analysis, we compared the identity-related and emotional benefits consumers expect from new versus second-hand clothing with the benefits they report after actual purchases. Drawing on affective forecasting and consumer psychology, we find that materialism is associated with stronger expectations of self-esteem gains and positive emotions from clothing purchases. Materialistic consumers also systematically overestimate the identity-boosting benefits of future brand-new purchases relative to second-hand ones, a bias we call 'the brand-new overestimation effect'. However, this bias disappears when consumers evaluate their past purchases. Furthermore, anticipated positive emotions predict intentions to buy second-hand clothing, but are less important for intentions to buy brand-new clothing, suggesting that choosing second-hand requires a stronger affective pull to overcome the preference for buying new. These findings show that biased expectations about self-relevant benefits favour brand-new over second-hand purchases. These findings suggest that marketing communications for second-hand fashion should move beyond functional appeals or economic savings by clearly highlighting the emotional and identity-related benefits of circular consumption.
ABSTRACT This research dives into the nuanced role of sensory inputs—ranging from the established audiovisual to the emerging olfactory, haptic, and gustatory modalities—in optimizing consumer experiences within virtual reality. We rely on construal level theory to develop a conceptual model and several propositions that explore how the number and nature (i.e., real vs. imagined) of sensory inputs affect proximity and cognitive load, which we propose respectively enhance and detract from immersion. We further explore system immersivity, sensory congruency, and sensory domains as moderators within the model. We link the model to the consumer decision‐making journey by examining potential effects on both upstage (e.g., attitudinal) and downstage (e.g., behavioral/decisional) outcomes. Based on this model and the resultant propositions, we develop a research agenda to guide future inquiry in virtual reality sensory marketing, with particular focus on real versus imagined inputs and construal level.
Integrating AI led social cues into service encounters has become a key strategy for humanizing technology. Grounded in Social Penetration Theory, this research examines how AI-generated humor styles (affiliative vs. self-defeating) influence consumer brand identification and proposes consumer personality as a key moderator. To ensure methodological rigor, we employ a multi-study experimental design across four independent studies, each using scenario-based experiments with controlled manipulations and separate participant samples. Results show that AI humor operates as socio-emotional disclosure that strengthens brand connections. Both humor styles significantly enhance brand identification relative to neutral interactions, through the parallel mediating roles of psychological closeness and customer trust. Drawing on Benign Violation Theory to clarify boundary conditions, the findings reveal a moderating effect of consumer personality. Extraverts respond positively to both humor types due to higher stimulation tolerance, whereas introverts show a clear preference for affiliative humor and view self-defeating humor as risky or inappropriate. These results reconcile inconsistencies in human AI interaction research and offer practical insights for leveraging person AI fit to build authentic digital relationships.
ABSTRACT While customer journey research is proliferating, acumen of the broader stakeholder journey (SJ), which addresses any stakeholder's (e.g., an employee's, supplier's, or customer's) journey with the firm, remains more nascent. In particular, understanding of the role of psychological mechanisms in shaping collective or grouped stakeholders’ journeys , aggregated stakeholders' shared trajectory of role‐related touchpoints and activities, enacted through their joint engagement, which shape their shared experience with the firm (e.g., the shared journeys of employee unions or teams, customer advocacy groups, supplier collectives, competitors' organizations, or industry associations), lags behind. To bridge this gap, we adopt group‐centric dynamic social impact theory (DSIT) to examine the effect of dynamic social impact (social influence) on grouped stakeholders' journey with the firm. Drawing on the 7C framework, we develop a set of propositions that explore the effect of grouped stakeholders' DSIT tenets of stakeholder consolidation, clustering, correlation, and continuing diversity on their joint engagement and experience through their journey with the firm, offering novel insight. We conclude by deriving key theoretical (e.g., by inviting future empirical testing of the propositions) and practical implications from our analysis (e.g., by proposing strategies to facilitate constructive stakeholder interactions).
Many consumers have secrets that frequently preoccupy their minds. They may find themselves thinking about their secrets even outside of contexts where secret-keeping is relevant, such as during shopping activities. Previous research suggests that the impact of secret preoccupation on individuals' perceptions and behavior is significant. Thus, in the marketing context, it is very likely that secrecy will also have an impact on consumption choices and post-purchase attitudes or behaviors. This research investigates how the salience of secrecy affects consumers' self-perception and judgment of the consumption decisions they made. Five studies reveal that consumers have greater regret about the consumption decisions they made during the period when their secrets are salient (vs. not), and show that this effect is driven by perceived decision inauthenticity. The effect of secrecy salience on consumers' regret about their consumption decision is weakened when the decision was clearly driven by external incentives and when the decision was made for others.
ABSTRACT Overlooking heterogeneity (variability) in customer experience (CX) can lead to incomplete theoretical insights and suboptimal managerial decisions. To address this issue, this article reviews the causes of heterogeneity in extant meta‐analyses of CX research ( n : 91). Guided by Becker and Jaakkola's (2020) classification of CX research, the present review illuminates the moderators (conceptual, contextual, methodological, practical, and temporal) that explain heterogeneity across four clusters of CX research. The “stimuli that affect experiences” cluster displays variation shaped by multiple touchpoints and emerging technologies such as augmented reality and chatbots. The “responses to stimuli” cluster demonstrates that customers' cognitive, emotional, and behavioral experiential responses vary due to cultural and methodological differences. The “evaluative outcomes” cluster highlights satisfaction and loyalty as central outcomes shaped by conceptual and contextual drivers. The “customer contingencies” cluster reveals the moderating influence of cultural dimensions, personal traits, and sustainability considerations. These findings advance the theoretical understanding of variation in CX and create opportunities for refined managerial practice and subsequent research inquiry.
While consumer ethnocentrism has been widely examined, little is known about how consumers manage the persistent gap between ethnocentric attitudes and everyday purchasing behavior. Drawing on balance theory (Heider 1958), this study conceptualizes consumer ethnocentrism as a situationally activated balancing process rather than a stable disposition. Using two qualitative studies (22 shopping diaries and 25 in-depth interviews with Czech Millennials), we examine how consumers restore equilibrium when tensions arise between the Perceiver-Object-Benefit triad. The findings identify three recurring sources of imbalance in ethnocentric consumption, namely benefit trade-off tensions, identity tensions, and brand evaluation tensions. Consumers restore balance through two higher-order regulatory logics. Tension-attenuation mechanisms allow consumers to distance themselves from identity conflict without structurally correcting behavior, whereas norm-reinforcement mechanisms strengthen identity-consistent standards and guide behavioral alignment.
Prior survey research indicates that more than half of consumers make shared consumption decisions at least three times monthly. Because shared consumption involves dividing products or resources among multiple users, consumers in shared (vs. solo) contexts probably place greater value on product divisibility. As square shapes are likely to be perceived as more divisible than round shapes, we propose that shared consumption increases preferences for square (vs. round) products. To test this proposition, we conducted ten experiments examining basic effects, mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation; we also extend mediation analysis by testing auxiliary premises. Results show that shared (vs. solo) consumption increases individuals' preference for square over round products. This effect is mediated by heightened divisibility needs under shared consumption and depends on the common belief that squares are easier to divide than circles. The effect disappears when this belief is weakened or when the shared product is non-rivalrous and thus does not imply division. Moreover, when sharing is strongly associated with reunion, the preference reverses. These findings extend theories of consumption modes and sensory marketing, demonstrate mediation analysis with auxiliary premises, and provide actionable implications for product design and retail strategy.
ABSTRACT The rapid proliferation of AI agents (AIAs) is fundamentally altering how consumers make decisions. Yet marketing scholarship lacks both a shared definition of what constitutes an AIA and a theoretical framework adequate to capture its effects on consumer behavior. This editorial addresses both gaps. We first propose a definition of AIAs organized around three distinguishing features (i.e., autonomy, adaptive learning and memory, and tool‐enabled connectivity) and introduce a typology distinguishing advisory AIAs, which recommend options, from transactional AIAs, which execute decisions on the consumer's behalf. We then present a three‐stage framework of consumer decision‐making with AIAs, comprising consumer prompting, AIA processing, and consumer response, embedded within two dynamic feedback loops: a relational capital loop that shapes trust and delegation across repeated interactions, and an AI learning loop that updates the agent's internal representations over time. Drawing on a systematic mapping of AIA‐focused articles published in leading marketing journals between 2020 and 2026, we show that existing research is heavily concentrated on consumer responses to AI recommendations while largely neglecting prompting behavior, agent cognition, privacy, transparency, and relational dynamics, precisely the domains most distinctive to agentic systems. We argue that the rise of transactional AIAs signals a dual paradigm shift: the consumer is no longer the sole cognitive actor in the purchase process, and preferences may increasingly be co‐constructed through human–agent conversation rather than formed independently. We outline a research agenda to address these gaps and call on scholars in psychology and marketing to develop the theoretical and empirical tools needed to understand decision‐making in the age of AIAs. [Correction added on 2 June 2026, after first online publication: The last sentence of the Abstract was inadvertently added and has been removed.]
How can advertisers break through the competition for consumers' limited mental bandwidth? Drawing on Prospect Theory and Elaboration Likelihood Model, this research examines how cognitive load shapes consumer responses to sustainability messaging on social media, focusing on ads with explicit versus implicit conclusions. Across three experiments using laundry detergent (Study 1, N = 180), phone cases (Study 2, N = 275), and water bottles (Study 3, N = 293) as stimuli, we test whether-and why-explicit conclusions function as heuristics under conditions of high cognitive load. The results show that, when cognitive load is high, consumers exhibit a stronger preference for ads with explicit (vs. implicit) conclusions. This effect is mediated by perceived message credibility, which in turn enhances brand attitudes. These findings extend theory on heuristic processing in sustainability advertising and offer practical guidance for designing effective social media messages in cognitively demanding environments.
ABSTRACT Consuming luxury products and services has received little systematic attention as a potential pathway to consumer well‐being, despite sporadic evidence suggesting that luxury experiences may catalyse self‐transformational processes and happiness‐related outcomes. Synthesising insights from 109 academic articles, we examine how and why luxury consumption contributes to short‐ or long‐term well‐being, with happiness as a key psychological dimension encompassing hedonic and eudaimonic forms. Findings suggest that the answer might differ for traditional/masstige luxury, which often prioritises temporal hedonic gratification, and for unconventional luxury (e.g., experiential, ethical, sustainable), which is more aligned with eudaimonic well‐being. Our analysis identifies key socio‐psychological, cultural, and contextual mechanisms that shape the luxury‐induced well‐being. We propose a dual‐pathway conceptual framework that reconceptualises luxury as a driver of self‐transformation, reconciling pessimistic views of luxury as illusory with optimistic perspectives on its transformative potential through intrapersonal and sociomoral pathways. This framework extends extant consumer research's emphasis on affective and motivational dimensions, offering seven future‐oriented research propositions to guide subsequent inquiry. Conclusively, the study provides pathway‐specific design levers for managers to align luxury with sustainability and post‐materialist values, while delineating critical methodological gaps for future research, specifically prioritising longitudinal assessments and meta‐analytic validation to empirically weight transformative effects.
