The Effect Of Perceived Control On Product Preferences And Consumption Propensities Of Consumers In Self-threat Situations

Consumers are likely to experience various self-threat in daily life,such as competence be doubted by others,suffering social exclusion,feeling lack of attractiveness,status be challenged,etc.In self-threat situations,consumers may show preference for different types of goods.For example,they are may engaged in problem solving by consuming goods helping their self-growth,and they may also distract attentions and release themselves from the threats by consuming hedonic goods.Consumers may also show different consumption propensities in self-threat situations.For example,for the products that be claimed to help them promote the threatened trait,consumers may exhibit a positive attitude of acceptance and adopt compliant consumption towards these products,and they may also exhibit a negative attitude of rejection and adopt defensive consumption towards these products.It is of great significance to explore the factors that affect consumers' product preferences and consumption propensities in self-threat situations,which can not only make a contribution to theoritical construction but also offer practical advice for consumers and businesses.On the basis of reviewing the previous research,this paper explored the above questions through 8 laboratory experiments of two studies which tested the 12 hypotheses.In Study 1,we reviewed the relevant theories and literatures on self-threat,coping and perceived control and assumed that perceived control affects the consumers' product preferences in self-threat situations.Specifically,consumers with a stronger sense of control consider they are more capable and responsible for dealing with the threats.As a result,they are more likely to take problem-focused coping strategies and prefer goods which can help self-growth.Consumers with a weeker sense of control consider they are unable to solve the threats and they can only escape.As a result,they are more likely to take emotion-focused coping strategies and prefer hedonic goods.According to the above logic,we proposed six hypotheses(Hypothesis 1 to Hypothesis 6)and conducted four experiments(Experiment 1 to Experiment 4)to test whether the sense of control from different sources(i.e.,controllability of the threats,locus of control of the consumers,and the consumers' previous coping experience)affect the consumers' preference for hedonic or self-growth goods.In the four laboratory experiments,we manipulated the participants' perceived control and four kinds of self threats(i.e.,mortality salience,intelligence threat,powerlessness,and social exclusion),and measured the problem-focused and emotion-focused coping tendency and the goods preferences of the participants.The results from the four experiments proved the six hypotheses.In Study 2,we reviewed the relevant theories and literatures on self-threat,defense mechanism and perceived control.Then we assumed that the perceived control affects the consumers' consumption propensities in self-threat situations.Specifically,consumers with a weeker sense of control are more likely to use defense mechanisms.As a result,they are more likely to exhibit a negative attitude of rejection and adopt defensive consumption towards the products that claim to help them promote the threatened trait.Consumers with a stronger sense of control are less likely to use defense mechanisms.As a result,they are more likely to exhibit a positive attitude of acceptance and adopt compliant consumption towards these products.According to the above logic,we also proposed six hypotheses(Hypothesis 7 to Hypothesis 12)and conducted four experiments(Experiment 5 to Experiment 8)to test whether the sense of control affects the consumers' compliant or defensive consumption propensities.In the four laboratory experiments,we manipulated the participants' perceived control and four kinds of self-threats(i.e.,attractiveness threat,intelligence threat,social exclusion and status threat),measured the participants' defense mechanism and the consumption propensities.The results from the four experiments proved the six hypotheses.We can draw the following conclusions from the two studies.Firstly,self-threat and perceived control interacted to affect consumers' product preferences,which is mediated by consumers' problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies.Secondly,self-threat and perceived control interacted to affect consumers' consumption propensities,which is mediated by consumers' defense mechanism.In the final part,the main findings of the two studies were concluded,and the theoretical contribution,the practical implications,the limitations and future directions were discussed as well.