Wenting Feng, Lijia Wang, Cuixin Gao
Gemmological Institute, Research Center for Psychological and Health Science, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China.
Research Center for Psychological and Health Sciences, Institute of Education, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China.
Front Psychol. 2022 Apr 25;13:832869. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.832869. eCollection 2022.
With the increasingly crowded shopping environment, social crowding has become an important factor that affects consumers' psychology and behavior. However, the impact of social crowding on consumers' preference for green products hasn't been focused on. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the influence of social crowding on consumers' preference for green products. With four studies, the present research examines how social crowding influences consumers' preferences and uncovers the underlying psychological mechanism. The research shows that consumers prefer green products more under the condition of high social crowding than low, and safety needs mediate the impact of social crowding on green products preference. However, the impact of social crowding on the preference for products is only significant in green products. It also demonstrates the moderating effect of introversion-extraversion personality traits between social crowding and green products preference. For extraverted consumers, social crowding won't affect their preference for green products, while for introverted consumers, social crowding is more likely to increase their preference for green products. This study contributes to marketing research by proposing and testing a new mechanism that underlies social crowding.
随着购物环境日益拥挤，社会拥挤已成为影响消费者心理和行为的重要因素。然而，社会拥挤对消费者对绿色产品偏好的影响尚未受到关注。因此，本文旨在实证研究社会拥挤对消费者绿色产品偏好的影响。通过四项研究，本研究考察了社会拥挤如何影响消费者的偏好，并揭示了潜在的心理机制。研究表明，与低社会拥挤条件相比，消费者在高社会拥挤条件下更倾向于绿色产品，安全需求在社会拥挤对绿色产品偏好的影响中起中介作用。然而，社会拥挤对产品偏好的影响仅在绿色产品中显著。研究还表明了内外向人格特质在社会拥挤与绿色产品偏好之间的调节作用。对于外向型消费者，社会拥挤不会影响他们对绿色产品的偏好，而对于内向型消费者，社会拥挤更有可能增加他们对绿色产品的偏好。本研究通过提出并检验一种社会拥挤背后的新机制，为营销研究做出了贡献。
