社会拥挤对消费者决策模式及产品偏好的影响机制研究

As the world population continues to grow, our planet is getting increasingly crowded. In 2017, the world population has reached 7.5 billion. As the world’s most populated country, social crowding problem has becoming more and more serious in China. In our daily life, social crowding due to a higher density of consumers is pervasive and common in a retail setting. Drawing from an interdisciplinary perspective, the present research aims to systematically investigate the influence of social crowding in a retail setting on consumers’ decision-making and product preference, as well as the psychological mechanisms underlying the proposed effects...Perceived crowding is a psychological state that occurs when people’s demand for space exceeds the supply (Stokols 1972). Social crowding concerns the number of individuals (i.e., human density) in a given environmental setting. An important consequence of social crowding is the violation of personal space (Maeng et al. 2013), which is defined as the physical region surrounding the human body that serves as a buffer protecting people from potential threats (Hall 1966). Once the personal space is violated, consumers will activate a defense system to deal with environmental threats (Dosey and Meisels 1969; Lang, Bradley, and Cuthbert 1997). ..According to the literature review, prior investigations of social crowding caused by perceptions of human density have mainly demonstrated its negative affective and behavioral outcomes. For instance, social crowding has been shown to reduce service satisfaction and make consumers leave the store earlier (Eroglu et al. 2005; Hui and Bateson 1991). In addition, O’Guinn and colleagues (2015) document that as the social density of a given space increases, inferences of the subjective social class and income of people in that space fall. ..However, extant research has not investigated how could consumers cope with the negative effects due to social crowding in a retail setting. The present research tends to address this research gap by exploring four specific research questions. First of all, will social crowding shift consumers’ choice from a product assortment that they intend to purchase from? Specifically, we want to examine whether social crowding in a retailing store systematically affects the choice share of consumers’ favorite alternative from a product category they intend to purchase from. We propose that shopping in a high-density context make consumers infer the overall availability of the product assortment they intend to purchase from as low, which consequently increases the choice share of their most-preferred alternative and in the meanwhile broaden the discrepancy between liking of favroite and non-favorites. Second, we are interested in how will social crowding in a retail setting influence consumers’ preference for products with high versus low visual contrast. We hypothesize that social crowding will decrease perceived self-concept clarity, thus promote preference for products with hight visual contrast. Third, we aim to demonstrate that shopping in a crowded store will activate a competitive mindset which consequently enhance preference for self-improvement products. Finally, we want to empirically differentiate between online crowding and offline crowding. ..The findings of current research could provide both theoretical contributions and practical implications in multiple ways. We provide a novel investigation of social crowding in a retail environment by uncovering its consequences on consumer decision-making and product preference. And our research contributes to the literature on context effect by identifying social crowding as an critical cue to change consumers’ preference. In addition, our findings should provide potentially important managerial implications for retailing, product inventory management, and in-store product display.

作为世界第一人口大国，目前我国因人口密度过高而导致的社会拥挤现象日趋严峻。在十九大增强人民幸福感的主题引导下，本研究项目将从跨学科的角度重点关注社会拥挤对消费者决策模式和产品偏好的影响，并探讨这些效应背后的心理机制和边界效应。基于文献梳理，前人研究已揭示了社会拥挤会对个体的心理和生理产生一系列负面影响，但在营销领域对于购物场景中的社会拥挤现象的相关研究还较匮乏。故此，我们将从四个角度对购物场景中的社会拥挤进行深入研究：1）探索社会拥挤对消费者选择极化的影响机制；2）检验社会拥挤对高视觉对比度产品的偏好影响，并验证消费者自我概念清晰度的中介机制；3）探讨社会拥挤对自我提升类产品偏好的影响机制；4）剖析线上VS线下拥挤的差异。本研究将通过实证实验和消费者访谈等多种方式对假设进行检验，研究结果具有积极的理论和现实意义，既能扩展情境效应的理论，又能从消费升级的角度为如何应对社会拥挤的负面效应提供实践指导。

随着全球人口的不断增长，社会拥挤问题日益普遍，然后目前营销领域对于该问题的研究还十分匮乏。社会拥挤作为一个前沿的研究议题，本项目通过四个密切相关的子研究内容，系统探索了社会拥挤如何影响消费者的决策模式和产品偏好。具体的研究内容包括，1）社会拥挤的情境下，消费者是否会采用选择极化的决策模式？其背后的心理机制又是什么？2）如何通过购买产品降低社会拥挤带来的负面情绪，比如产品设计中的视觉对比度以及自我提升类产品能否帮助消费者应对社会拥挤现象，从而提升购物满意度？3）区别线上、线下两种不同场景下的社会拥挤，解析消费者在不同场景下体验的社会拥挤是否影响其心理感受和行为决策?..本项目基于跨学科的视角，融合管理学、心理学和社会学领域的研究方法，通过一系列的实验室实验、实地实验以及二手零售数据等对上述问题进行了细致研究。其中子研究内容一发现相对于购物场景中的不拥挤现象，社会拥挤显著提升了消费者的选择极化。并且这一社会拥挤效应收到了产品可得性的中介作用。子研究内容二则发现社会拥挤的情境下，消费者的私人空间受到威胁，故此激发一种寻求自我与他人的界限的需求。在该需求驱动下，消费者会在社会拥挤时更偏好高视觉对比度的产品。而子研究内容三验证了社会拥挤能够显著增强个体对自我提升类产品的偏好, 自我提升需求在其中发挥中介作用。此外, 社会公平感知和地区就业率对社会拥挤的这一偏好增强效应起到调节作用。最后，子研究内容四探索了线上和线下两种拥挤的不同心理作用机制。..本项目产出了多篇高质量的中英文期刊论文发表、会议论文和学术专著等系列成果。其研究发现拓展了社会拥挤在营销领域的结果变量，探索了社会拥挤的正面效应，并且揭示了在线虚拟拥挤的心理机制，为今后的研究研究提供了新思路。本项目的研究成果也可以帮助企业根据不同的拥挤情境提供相应的产品设计，从而提升营销促销方式的有效性和顾客满意度。