Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Infectious Disease Clues On Product Visual Density Preference

The outbreak of the global novel COVID-19 has profoundly affected the life lifestyle of consumers.At present,China has entered a high incidence stage of influenza dominated by influenza A(H1N1).Consumers often encounter clues of infectious diseases in their daily lives,and the existence of these clues leads them to avoid contact with dense populations.Whether this avoidance psychology will extend to the visual preference of products deserves further discussion.In terms of product visual design,previous research has focused more on exploring the impact of visual feature differences on consumer reactions,with less research exploring what factors affect consumers’ preferences for different visual features.Especially,research on visual density preferences is relatively scarce.Combining relevant theories and marketing practices,this study found that infectious disease cues significantly reduce consumers’ preferences for high visual density.Based on the conceptual metaphor theory,there is a metaphorical relationship between visual density and social intimacy.Therefore,infectious disease cues lead to consumers’ rejection of social intimacy,which further reduces their preference for high visual density.Based on the theory of protective motivation,risk perception plays a significant mediation in the impact of infectious disease cues on product visual density preference.Infectious disease cues can increase consumers’ risk perception and reduce their preference for high visual density.In addition,from the perspective of individual characteristics and external environmental factors,we examine the moderation of resilience and perceived disease controllability in the above mechanisms.Specifically,resilience and perceived disease controllability will weaken the impact of infectious disease cues on consumers’ risk perception.In summary,this study verified the above research issues through four preexperiments and three main experiments.The experimental results show that infectious disease cues significantly reduce consumers’ preferences for high visual density,and risk perception plays a significant mediating role in the impact of infectious disease cues on consumers’ visual density preferences.In addition,according to the resilience theory,for individuals with low resilience,the mediation of risk perception is significant;For individuals with high resilience,the mediation of risk perception is not significant.Moreover,perceived diseases controllability can also weaken the impact of infectious disease cues on risk perception.Specifically,under low perceived disease controllability conditions,the mediation of risk perception is significant.Under the condition of high perceived disease controllability,the mediation of risk perception is not significant.This research is relatively innovative in exploring the impact of infectious disease cues on consumer visual density preferences from the visual design level of products,and reveals the internal mechanism of the above impact.It not only helps to enrich and expand the theoretical connotation and application fields of conceptual metaphor theory and protective motivation theory,but also has important practical implications for enterprises on product visual design and risk avoidance.The thesis has 9 figures,12 tables,and 249 references.