de Groot Jasper H B
Department of Social and Cultural Psychology, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2021 Aug 20;12:718279. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.718279. eCollection 2021.
Humanity's demand for ecological resources and services exceeds what earth can regenerate in that year, creating an urgent need for more sustainable behavior. Here, the focus is on a particular factor that so far has been overlooked in facilitating sustainable behavior, namely smell. The two-fold aim of this study was (i) to investigate whether ambient scent could enhance customers' subjective experience and spending behavior in a sustainable environment, and (ii) to elucidate the affective and cognitive pathways from scent to spending. To test this, a double-blind field experiment was designed where customers of a second-hand clothing store ( = 57) could face one of three conditions: fresh linen scent (pleasant and semantically priming "clean clothing" increasing the products' value), vanilla sandalwood scent (pleasant control odor), or regular store odor (odorless control). Buttressed by prior research, the fresh linen scent was expected to cause the strongest increase in spending behavior due to its positive semantic association with the product (i.e., clean clothing). The results indeed showed that fresh linen scent almost doubled consumer spending vs. the odorless control the pleasant control odor. Other factors potentially affecting consumer behavior (e.g., weekday, weather, odor awareness) were uncorrelated. Whereas a conceptually-driven mediation analysis showed that only fresh linen scent increased mood and evaluations of the store, staff, and products, these variables did not mediate the relation between scent and spending. An explorative structural equation model suggested cognitive priming to be mainly responsible for increasing consumers' spending in the fresh linen condition by enhancing the general store evaluation. Further support is needed to corroborate the indirect findings that specific scents can follow a "cold" semantic road and a "hot" affective road to spending. At minimum, consumers are no "zombies" that empty their pockets in the presence of whatever odor; the smell needs to have a meaningful link to the (sustainable) context at hand to influence consumer behavior.
人类对生态资源和服务的需求超过了地球当年的可再生能力，这就迫切需要人们采取更具可持续性的行为。在此，重点关注的是一个在促进可持续行为方面迄今被忽视的特定因素，即气味。本研究的双重目标是：（i）调查环境气味是否能提升顾客在可持续环境中的主观体验和消费行为；（ii）阐明从气味到消费的情感和认知路径。为了验证这一点，设计了一项双盲实地实验，二手服装店的顾客（ = 57）会面临三种情况之一：新鲜亚麻香味（宜人且在语义上引发“干净衣物”的联想，提升产品价值）、香草檀香香味（宜人的对照气味）或普通店铺气味（无气味对照）。基于先前的研究，预计新鲜亚麻香味因其与产品的积极语义关联（即干净衣物）会导致消费行为的最大增幅。结果确实表明，与无气味对照和宜人的对照气味相比，新鲜亚麻香味几乎使消费者支出增加了一倍。其他可能影响消费者行为的因素（如工作日、天气、气味意识）并无关联。虽然概念驱动的中介分析表明只有新鲜亚麻香味能提升情绪以及对店铺、员工和产品的评价，但这些变量并未介导气味与消费之间的关系。一个探索性结构方程模型表明，认知启动主要通过提升对店铺的总体评价来促使消费者在新鲜亚麻香味环境下增加消费。需要进一步的支持来证实特定气味可以通过“冷”语义路径和“热”情感路径影响消费这一间接发现。至少，消费者并非在任何气味面前都会掏钱的“僵尸”；气味需要与当下（可持续的）情境有有意义的联系才能影响消费者行为。
