Research On The Influence Of Age Cognitive Bias On Consumers’ Self-improvement Consumption Intention Of Middle Aged And Elderly People

Self-perceived age refers to an individual’s subjective perception of his own age,which reflects an individual’s cognition of himself and it is a vital part of individual development and self-concept.In reality,many individuals may feel the discrepancy between their self-perceived age and their chronological age.This phenomenon is more common in middle-aged and elderly groups who tend to feel younger than their chronological age.In the context of the discrepancy between self-perceived age and chronological age,i.e.the bias between subjective self and physical self,according to the cognitive dissonance theory,such discrepancy will induce the individual’s sense of cognitive dissonance,and thus prompt the individual to take actions to reduce the feeling of dissonance.Therefore,individuals may reinforce their identification with the ideal self through consumption behavior,which is self-improvement consumption.Exploring the psychological mechanism behind the influence of age cognitive bias on individual’s self-improvement consumption intention will not only have theoretical significance to enrich the theoretical research framework,but also have practical significance to guide consumers to correctly treat senescence and thereby to rationally consume as well as to promote enterprise to more precisely understand consumer psychology and make effective marketing strategy.Based on the review and summary of previous studies,this paper explores the role that self-identity threat plays in the psychological mechanism behind the influence of the age cognitive bias on the self-improvement consumption intention of middle-aged and elderly people,and introduces implicit-self theories as a moderating variable to conduct this research.Based on the literature review and theoretical deduction of cognitive dissonance theory,self-perceived age,self-identity threat and implicit-self theories,this paper proposes three hypotheses.Questionnaires were distributed and collected online through a questionnaire platform named Wenjuanxing.In this paper,data analysis software SPSS24.0 and Amos24.0 were used for hypothesis testing to explore the influence mechanism of the age cognitive bias on the self-improvement consumption intention of middle-aged and elderly people.Through hypothesis testing,this paper draws the following conclusions: The age cognitive bias will reinforce the self-improvement consumption intention of middle-aged and elderly groups,which means the greater the bias,the stronger the self-improvement consumption intention.At the same time,self-identity threat partially mediates the relationship between the age cognitive bias and self-improvement consumption intention.In addition,consumer’s implicit self-theories can moderate the relationship between self-identity threat and consumers’ self-improvement consumption intention.In other words,compared with those who are entity theorists,consumers who are incremental theorists have stronger self-improvement consumption intention when they are subjected to self-identity threat.Finally,this paper summarizes and analyzes the research results,then discusses the practical implications for consumers and enterprises,and in the end points out the limitations of this study and prospects for future research.