Research On The Effect Of Power State On Consumers' Preference For Experiential Or Material Consumption

Experiential and material consumption is a new division of consumption types proposed by consumer behavior in recent years.Material consumption refers to the purchase and possession of those tangible material goods,such as clothes,shoes,bags,jewelry,electronic goods,daily necessities,etc.Experiential consumption refers to the consumption behavior of those intangible experiential services and experiences,such as travel,movies,singing,concerts,dinners,etc.Available literatures focus on what're the differences between experiential consumption and material consumption and what different psychological experience these differences will bring consumers.However,there are lack of which factor will influence consumers' preference for experiential or material consumption.Power refers to the asymmetric control of an individual over resources of important social relations,while power state refers to the individual's perception that wheather they have the ability to control resources asymmetrically so as to control others.Individuals often feel different power states in their daily life,and a large number of daily events and situations will induce the high power or low power states of individuals.Then,will the power state play a role as the situational variable influencing consumer experiential and material consumption preference? What is the underlying mechanism? What are the boundary conditions of the model? The above problems are the important problems to be studied and solved in this paper.Based on the Agentic-Communal Model,the argument put forward is high power individuals show greater personal guidance,and low power individuals show stronger social orientation.Compared with material consumption,experiential consumption has stronger social attribute.Compared with material consumption,experiential consumption is shared by more people and involves more interpersonal factors.Therefore,consumers with low power will show stronger experiential consumption preference than those with high power.Follow the above logic,this study divides experiential consumption into social experiential consumption with high social attribute and solitary experiential consumption without social attribute,and proposes that the type of experiential consumption will moderate the influence of power state on experiential consumption preference.Specifically,consumers with low power status have a higher social tendency than those with high power status,so they will prefer social experiential consumption items compared with solitary experiential consumption items.In addition to the types of consumption,this paper,based on the self-construal theory,proposes that the types of self-construal of consumers can also moderate the effect of the power state on the experiential and material consumption preference.Specifically,since consumers of interdependent self-construal tend to define themselves in reference to interpersonal relationship and environment,when faced with low power state,they are more likely to respond to low power state by preferring experiential consumption with high social attribute rather than material consumption with low social attribute.Since independent self-construal consumers tend to define themselves by taking themselves as the reference frame,they are more likely to deal with low-power state through other methods rather than social orientation,and thus do not show obvious experiential consumption preference.Based on the above logic,this paper puts forward four hypotheses,and through six study to validate the above hypotheses.The hypothesis H1 proposed that the power state negatively affect consumers' experiencial consumption preference.The H2 proposed the meditating role of social orientation.H3 proposed the moderator role of the type of experiential consumption.And H4 proposed the moderator role of self-construal.In study 1,a method of surevy was used to verify the relationship between consumers' power state and their experience and material consumption preference.Power state had a significant negative impact on participants' experiential consumption preference,and H1 was preliminarily verified.In order to further verify the causal relationship,study 2 manipulated the power state of the participants and measured the real purchase behavior of the participants to further verify hypothesis H1.Study 3 not only verified the main effect of power state on experiential and material consumption preference,but also excluded the alternative explanation that the effect is due to consuemrs' positive or negative feeling when they are in high or low power state.After the robust verification of the main effect through three studies,this paper tested hypothesis H2 by measuring the social orientation of the participants in study 4,and found that social orientation played a mediating role in the influence of power state on consumers' experiential and material consumption preference.After verifying the mediating effect,this paper verified hypothesis H3 through research 5,that is,the type of experiential consumption moderates the influence of power state on experiential consumption preference.Through study 6,this paper verifies the role of hypothesis H4,that is,self-construal moderates the influence of power state on experiential and material consumption preference.This paper draws the following conclusions through six studies: firstly,consumers with low power state prefer experiential consumption to those with high power state.Secondly,social orietation plays a mediating role in the influence of power state on individual experiential and material consumption preference.Consumers with low power state have stronger social orientation than those with high power state,so they prefer experiential consumption with more social attribute compared with material consumption.Thirdly,the type of experiential consumption moderates the influence of power state on experiential consumption preference.Consumers with low power state prefer social experiential consumption items to those with high power state than those with high power state.Finally,self-construal moderates the influence of power states on experiential and material consumption preference.Compared with independent self-construction consumers,low power states are more likely promote the experiential consumption preference of interdependent self-construal consumers.