The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented crises to societies and economies around the world and has brought drastic changes in the way consumers behave. Fashion business is one of the industries that has been significantly affected by Covid-19 as many consumers reduced their discretionary spending during the pandemic. While the world is entering the post-pandemic era and recovering from the pandemic, it is important to uncover and reflect on the reasons behind varying patterns of consumers’ coping behaviors associated with fashion shopping. However, current research on consumer fashion behavior during the pandemic primarily focuses on a particular type of shopping behavior, without addressing varying patterns of fashion consumption behaviors. In addition, most of these studies attributed such changes in behaviors to motivations toward protection against health-adverse threats based on the Protection Motivation Theory, which mostly focuses on protective behaviors and has limited power in understanding varying internal reasons toward various coping behaviors. Considering the varying adaptive and maladaptive patterns of fashion consumption behaviors observed in the market, it is important to address the psychological mechanism behind varying adaptive and maladaptive patterns of fashion consumption behaviors. Thus, drawing from the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework, this study aims to investigate how cognitive appraisal of threats affects the affective/emotional state of consumers and consequently their intention to engage in various coping behaviors in the context of fashion shopping. Specifically, this study aims to investigate how individuals’ cognitive appraisals on risks and uncertainty induce varying emotional feelings (i.e., fear, anxiety, and hope), which further leads to their decisions to engage in problem vs. emotion-focused coping through fashion shopping during the pandemic.

• Hanna Lee(University of South Carolina)
• Yingjiao Xu(North Carolina State University)
• Wenna Han(North Carolina State University)