We study retailer app use and shopping behavior by investigating whether and how app adopters’ preferred store registration (PSR), a voluntary enrollment of store loyalty program, can lead to changes in purchase behaviors among the adopters in offline stores. A panel dataset from a large bakery franchise chain was studied using difference-in-differences with propensity score matching for causal inference. The results show that customers who participated in PSR increase their spending, compared to customers who did not. In addition, the results confirm that the PSR-spending relationship is moderated by customer and store characteristics; customers who visited infrequently and spent less prior to PSR participation increase their purchases, and they spend more at stores with better service quality.

Green consumption behavior (GCB) is desirable for a better world. The trend of GCB is expected to rise in the coming years. As such, it is imperative to understand the enablers of GCB. A significant majority of the investigated drivers of GCB are consumer-level factors. Studies focusing on the consumer-level showed that factors such as values, intentions, and personal norms could influence GCB. However, it is argued that compared to values or intentions, self-determined motivation can better predict GCB. The effect of self-determined motivation types (i.e., autonomous and controlled motivation) on GCB remains unclear due to prevailing gaps and contradictory findings. Furthermore, it is posited that people exhibit more self-determined behavior if they have strong self-awareness. Higher self-awareness can be achieved through mindfulness; therefore, differences in mindfulness level could affect the motivation-behavior relationship.

The purpose of this study is to examine how similarities between product designs manifest themselves in various aspects and how these influences purchasing and usage behavior. Product design similarity evokes positive images, such as a sense of security and familiarity, as well as negative images, such as mimicry and copying. For example, if you have just transferred to another school and your uniform does not match everyone else's, you might feel alienated. On the other hand, in parks and on street corners, wearing the same clothes and belongings can lead to an awkward moment. In the realm of psychology, the former is called the bandwagon effect and the latter is the snob effect. In contrast to the snob effect, which emphasizes scarcity, the bandwagon effect can create fads and hits. People experience both of these emotions, and it is said that using them appropriately and combining them leads to an effective marketing strategy.

While machine learning has gained popularity in choice behavior modeling, most machine learning models are often complex, difficult to interpret, and even considered as black box. This study investigates machine learning methods for choice behavior modeling that provide interpretability of models’ output. We explore various approaches including (1) explicitly descriptive models such as tree-based models, (2) interpretation of predictive models through feature importance measures, and (3) recent advancements in prediction explanation methods such as LIME and SHAP (Shapley Additive exPlanations). We demonstrate the methods on consumers’ airport choice behavior in Seoul metropolitan area. Through the comparative analysis with traditional discrete choice models, we discuss advantages as well as limitations of machine learning models in consumer choice behavior modeling.

This study investigates how zapping behavior is affected by television-viewing motives, classified into two broad categories: goal-directed instrumental motives and process-oriented ritualistic motives. We examine how such an impact varies among individuals with different degrees of advertising skepticism, opinion leadership, ongoing search, program involvement, and advertising involvement. By combining the television-viewing information of 1,162 individuals from April 2017 to March 2018 with survey data, we empirically analyze the effect of motivation on viewers’ zapping likelihood. The results suggest that zapping probability is lower when television-viewing is driven by instrumental motives than by ritualistic motives. The negative impact of instrumental motivations is more evident for individuals with higher ongoing search tendencies. By contrast, individuals who are more skeptical toward advertisements, have higher opinion leadership, or have higher program involvement are less vulnerable to such viewing motivations. We discuss the implications of these findings for devising an effective advertisement placement strategy.

In ethical consumerism, the issue of ethical attitudes not translating to ethical behaviors has been highly debated. While previous studies attribute this attitude-behavioral mismatch to the lack of education, hypocrisy, or low commitment, we propose a novel approach of applying Moral Foundation Theory (MFT) to account for the phenomenon. MFT identifies two dimensions of morality: individualizing moral foundations (INDI) which focuses on justice and harm, and binding moral foundations (BIND) which emphasizes authority and loyalty. Using responses from more than 4,000 consumers from four culturally and regionally diverse markets, we investigate the differing roles of moral foundations in response to a scenario on a sweatshop issue of a supplier whose factory is in a developing country. We use the mediator-moderator model of MFT-anticorporate attitude-boycott behavioral intention sequence to examine the differing role of INDI and BIND. Our results show that INDI and BIND are both positively related to anticorporate attitude; However, BIND is negatively related to boycott behavioral intention while INDI is positively related. That is, consumers with a strong BIND may show an attitude-behavioral mismatch although they are highly ethical.

The economic harm and survival fear caused by environmental conflicts are most likely to become the psychological lever to drive individuals to adopt environmentally friendly behaviours. From the perspective of environmental conflict, this paper will explore the transmission mechanism of environmental conflict on individuals’ pro-environmental behaviour through three experiments.

Consumers have a strong desire to share their accomplishments on social media. They post about getting a promotion, completing an online course, finishing a marathon, or donating to charity. Companies also nudge consumers to make such posts. Understanding better people's beliefs about sharing achievement-related information with others is important.

Chatbot-based services in online travel agency (OTA) are rapidly spreading in order to respond more agilely to consumers' needs based on the digitalization of the travel industry. Although AI chatbots use anthropomorphism to provide social experiences on behalf of humans, research results on its effects are mixed. Therefore, based on construal level theory, this study suggests the degree of anthropomorphism (low vs. high) of chatbots prime mental representations of different construal levels (low vs. high) and the fit between anthropomorphism and communication context (communication types and conversation types) has a positive effect on use behavior. This research method consisted of sentimental analysis for exploring use behavior of AI chatbots and two experimental studies (study 1 and study 2) to examine the hypotheses. The results of this study expand construal level theory and avatar research to provide an understanding of the anthropomorphism of AI chatbots.

A consumer psychologist observes someone make a choice between chocolate cake and fruit salad, a classic measure of self-control (Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999). Since the cake is relatively tastier but unhealthier (i.e., a vice; Wertenbroch, 1998), a choice of cake is interpreted as a lack of self-control, whereas a choice of fruit salad (a virtue) is viewed as successful self-control. The simplicity and intuitive appeal of this heuristic has led it to be widely adopted by consumer psychologists. However, a comprehensive understanding of the operation of self-control requires food consumption to be analyzed as a two-stage process: choice followed by intake quantity (Wansink & Chandon, 2014). Self-control processes may be relevant to both stages of a decision of what to eat (choice stage) and a decision of how much to eat the chosen option (quantity stage)—they may influence both choice and quantity. Examining the role of self-control in terms of post-choice quantity control is critical since over-consumption of calories is the single most significant contributor to obesity (Livingston & Zylke, 2012). The overconsumption problem is not an exclusive matter of vice foods. Eating virtuous foods can result in excessive calorie intake and thus consumers need to control the intake of virtues as well as vices.

This study examines the impact of digital payment methods on consumer spending, highlighting adoption's moderating role. A two-phase approach, involving 741 survey participants and 166,151 customer records, reveals that digital payments increase willingness to pay and total spending compared to credit cards. Adoption plays a pivotal role, with simple payment users showing significantly higher credit card usage than non-users.

Prejudice refers to ideas, beliefs, feelings, and attitudes that people have about other less familiar groups as a whole or individuals within those groups, based on their perceived group membership (e.g., race, class, gender, and religion. Prejudice has become increasingly of major importance to scientific thinking about relations between groups. However, little is known about how prejudice affects consumer buying behavior, especially regarding shopping activities that involve crossing between suppliers.

Referral programs are ubiquitous in the marketplace and incentive design is crucial in such programs. Most companies opt for a two-sided design where they reward both the referee and recipients in their referral programs. However, surprisingly little research examines the incentive designs in two-sided programs.

In the past decade the level of prosocial behavior has raised some concerns, whereas an empathic concern, one of the main predictors of prosocial behavior, is decreasing. Lack of empathy and less forgiving attitudes are one of the main characteristics of entitlement Entitlement, or feeling of deserving more than others, is negatively related to pro-social behavior (Campbell et al., 2004). In H1, we suggest that entitled individuals engage in prosocial behavior more when there is an opportunity to self-enhance vs. when there is no opportunity to self-enhance.

The attitude-behavior gap and intention-behavior gap has not been research extensively. The purpose of this study is to provide a review of moderating or mediating factors on the relationship between intention or attitude and behavior of sustainable tourism. Intention was defined as the degree of a human being’s resolve to perform a certain action. The construct ‘Intention” has been used widely in some theories like the Theory of Planned Behavior. Researchers usually include the intention construct into their research framework to explain the theoretical mechanism. Sustainable or ecological tourism education has been implemented for years and empirical evidence provides us that almost all tourists are alerted to the importance of sustainability. There is a great challenge that tourists’ behavior might not concur with their intention. Policymakers and marketers really want to know the real factors affecting the association between the intention and behavior of sustainable tourism. Tourists’ purchase intention is a rational process and is affected by safety. Tourist behavior is associated with price and service environment which is a mixture of rational and emotional considerations.

This study focuses on resale behavior in online consumer-to-consumer market platforms and examines the factors that promote and hinder the resale behavior of sellers. The evidence from the experiment suggests the negative effect of emotional attachment on resale intention and the moderating effect of resale possibilities.

Although older adults’ adoption rates of smartphones have continued to increase in recent years, health-related apps are not widely accepted by older adults. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to explore older adults’ adoption behavior of mobile health (mHealth) apps in the U.S. Specifically, this study applied protection motivation theory (PMT; Rogers, 1975) as the theoretical base to explain older adults’ adoption process of health apps to understand the influences of threat and coping appraisals on older adults’ adoption behavior of health apps. In addition, the current study incorporated the technology readiness theory (Parasuraman, 2000) to understand the influences of older adults’ positive and negative technological readiness (TR) on their PMT components. Data were collected from older adults (n = 600; 60% female) aged over 55 in the U.S. using online survey questionnaires. The data analysis was conducted using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings suggest the impact of coping appraisals on older adults’ attitudes toward mHealth apps and their (continuance) intention to use mHealth apps. Especially among PMT’s four appraisal components, response efficacy was the most critical underlying mechanism driving mHealth app-related attitude and behavioral intention. In addition, older adults’ beliefs about using mHealth apps (i.e., TR) significantly influenced their coping appraisal processes, while positive TR was more critical in forecasting their coping appraisals. The results suggest a need to classify older consumers into different segments based on their TR to develop differentiated marketing strategies. The findings also suggest that marketers understand various protective motivation components concerning the use of mHealth apps among older adults.

Plastic pollution is one of the biggest environmental problems in the world. In modern society, the consumption of single-use plastics in the food service industry has increased along with the increase in food-away-from-home. The COVID-19 pandemic has attacked the consumption of single-use plastic in the restaurant industry. During the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the US has retracted the related laws and policies regarding using single-use plastic for fast food and carry-out food, and customers have increased their use of single-use plastic for fast food and carry-out food due to worries about hygiene. Even though sustainability has been a novel topic in hospitality literature, a majority of studies have focused on the consumers’ perception, attitude, or behavioral willingness toward sustainability. To fill this gap in research, finding an effective way to influence consumers’ behavioral change becomes important and necessary.

Sustainability rears its head in the current online marketing and virtual store -research. Sustainability considerations involve pro-environmental-, social- and economic values as well as future generations and continuous innovation (Hanss and Böhm, 2012). Central in the sustainability research is sustainable consumer behavior, which has been found to be subject of intensions varying across different types of consumers, issues, and product categories (O’Rourke and Ringer, 2016). Determining consumers’ general egoistic, altruistic and biospheric values (e.g., De Groot and Steg 2008; Steg et al., 2014) have resulted quite complex and not always so generalizable structural models for sustainable behavior. While value -research has been dominant in determining the sustainability intensions and eventual behavior, there are relatively little solid theories and understating about different psychological processes behind sustainable behavior. Furthermore, the consideration of multiple sustainable consumer behavior outcomes seems to be limited, which can also hamper the development of models and theories (see e.g., Hulland and Houston 2021).

With the popularity of live streaming commerce, the characteristics of streamers and products subtly influence consumer behavior through visual live streaming form. Based on dual-process theory, this paper develops a comprehensive theoretical model to examine how consumer perceived streamer characteristics and product characteristics influence streamer attractiveness and product attractiveness, and explore how consumer behavior inertia is affected by streamer attractiveness and product attractiveness. An online survey consisting of 300 participants was recruited to empirically examine the proposed research model. The results indicated that consumer perceived streamer characteristics and product characteristics are important factors affecting the streamer attractiveness and product attractiveness, which in turn positively affect consumer’s shopping experience memory, which further influence consumer behavior inertia. In addition, the moderating effects of mindfulness are also examined.