A Study On The Impact Of Mental Account And Future Spending To The Purchase Intention

This study makes a simple summary about the mental account of domestics and foreignresearches. The paper is based on the theory of life cycle which was put forward by Shefrinand Thaler, made a study on the impact of mental account and future spending to the purchaseintention with the situation of the experimental, wished for some revelations to mentalaccount of consumer behavior in real life. The purpose on the two experiments is to knowhow mental account and future spending have effect on purchase intentionThe first experiment reported180university students were tried in six experimentalsituations with different future consumption amounts and different mental accounts how toinfluce the consumers’ purchase intention. The main effect of Mental accounts was significant,F(1,180)=62.31, p <0.01,The main effect of future consumption amount was significant, F(1，180)=72.02, p <0.01. The interaction between Mental accounts and the future of theconsumption amount was not significant.The experimental result verified a vast amount ofpsychological theory study about mental account, the result showed that the individualconsumer had decision-making behavior, the future consumption amount much bigger theindividual purchase intention much weaker; the future consumption amount much smaller, theindividual purchase intention much stronger. When the future spending was bigger, thecurrent income mental account for consumption willingness to buy was stronger than thecurrent deposit mental accounts for consumption willingness to buy, with enough increaseincome mental account for consumption willingness to buy was stronger than the lack ofincome increase mental account for consumption willingness to buy.The second experiment reported120university students were tried in four experimentalsituations with the future of the amount of consumption certain and uncertain situations,different mental accounts how to influct the consumers’ purchase intention. The main effect ofMental accounts was significant, F(1,120)=66.02, p<0.01,The main effect of the determinationof future consumption was significant, F(1,120)=61.55, p<0.01. The interaction between Mentalaccounts and the determination of future consumption was not significant. The experimentshowed that when the individuals’ future consumption amount was certain, the purchaseintention of consumers was much stronger. And when the individuals’ future consumptionamount was uncertain the purchase intention of consumers was much weaker. When thefuture consumption amount was certain, the current income mental account for the purchaseintention was stronger than the current deposit mental accounts for purchase intention. Whenthe future consumption amount was uncertain, the current income mental accounts for thepurchase intention was stronger than the current deposit mental accounts for purchaseintention.