The Effects Of Awe On The Relationship Between Narcissism And Consumers' Impulsive Buying:A Mediated Moderation Model

Narcissists are usually characterized by exhibitionism and vanity,and they see themselves as superior and entitled.To validate their grandiose self-image,narcissists distinguish themselves positively from purchasing and consuming materialistic possessions.They are more likely to make impulse purchases.In face of consumer culture and narcissism,carrying out applied and local research on how to reduce impulsive buying is an important research direction.Awe is defined as a positive emotion combined with the feelings of wonder,admiration,confusion and submission.The concept of awe has a long history and awe has been proved to benefit both individuals and society.We think the positive effects of awe also exist in the field of consumer behavior.Four experiments and two preliminary researches were conducted.In Experiment 1,we explored the relationship between narcissism and impulsive buying.In Experiment 2,we used a video to induce awe and aimed to explore the effects of awe on the relationship bwtween narcissism and impulsive buying;In Experiment 3,we used a narrative recall task to induce awe and explored the changes of perceived control of participants in order to futher examine the effects of awe;In Experiment 4,we aimed to futher test and interpret the moderating effect of awe.The results are as follows:(1)Narcissism is positively correlated with impulsive buying,the high level narcissists show more impulsive buying tendencies than low level narcissists.(2)Awe plays a moderating role on the relationship between narcissism and impulsive buying.Inducing the emotion of awe significantly decreases the high level narcissists' impulsive buying tendencies.As for the low level narcissists,there is no significant difference in impulsive buying tendencies between awe and neutral emotion conditions.(3)The moderating effect of awe is mediated by self-focused attention.This research uses different methods to induce awe and explore the effects of awe through various investigation methods.These findings deepen our understanding of narcissism,consumer behavior and awe,suggesting that improving the sense of awe is helpful in reducing irrational consumer behavior.