Time-inconsistent Decision-making And Consumer Self-regulation

Time-Inconsistent Decision-Making, a decision-making type in which a certain temporal spanexists between the decision-making point and the virtual acquisition of the products, involves ashort-term decision-making behavior and an expectation of product experience in long-term. Thedevelopment of e-business has impressively increased the occasions in which such decisions are to bemade, thus necessitating relative consumer behavior studies concerning this topic. This researchfocuses specifically on consumer self-regulation behavior in time-inconsistent decision makings. Afterreviewing pertinent psychological and consumer behavioral theories concerning self-regulation andtemporal inconsistency such as Construal Level Theory (CLT), Goal Theory and Regulation FocusTheory, etc., the researcher conducted3controlled experiment investigating the pattern and features ofconsumers’ self-regulation behavior in time-inconsistent decision-making. These results of thoseexperiments revealed two main conclusions: first, time-inconsistency is able to enhance consumers’self-regulation, specifically, when there is a time span between decision-making and productacquisition, consumer will exhibit a higher preference towards virtue products (that is, products thatproviding more long-term utility but less short-term hedonic experiences), in relative to cases in whichsuch a span does not exist. Second, for products in relevant to successful self-regulation (i.e., virtueproducts), the time-inconsistency of decision-making leads to more positive evaluations of thesubjective experiences towards the decision-making process per se.The conclusions described above exhibit some features of consumers’ self-regulation behaviorunder time-consistent decision-making and illustrated how time inconsistency can exert effects onevaluations of decision-making process itself when consumers are facing with a certain type ofproducts (i.e., the virtue products) as well. These conclusions, on one hand, bring up theoreticalexplanations for inconsistencies found in time-relevant decision makings, and provide supplement forextant theory body of self-regulation and temporal inconsistency. The researcher maintains thatimplications derived from this search can serve to enhance self-regulation of consumers by suggestingfeasible means such as making decisions in advance, and serve to improve marketers’ strategies byproviding certain behavioral patterns of consumers so that business can cope with them in order toincrease market chances and avoid potent risks. Moreover, the researcher also argues that conclusionsdraw from this research are able to augment the happiness of consumers, according to the results shownin Experiments3. Based on the points discussed above, the researcher believes that this study is ofgreat merits in both theoretical and applied senses.