| As people enter the consuming age,consumer behavior itself is no longer confined to satisfying the individual needs toward the functional attributes of commodities,but has gradually become an important tool for individuals to maintain their inner stability and balance.When encountering the inconsistency between external environment and internal needs,consumption can help individuals deal with self-threat information and make up for the deletion of psychological resources.Social exclusion,as a common social phenomenon in our daily life,seriously threatens the individuals' psychological needs.In recent years,some scholars have included social exclusion in the field of marketing and study the influence on individuals' subsequent consumer behavior.In terms of internal mechanism,the current researches concerned with social exclusion and consumer behavior can be divided into two aspects: psychological need perspective and other perspective.In other perspective,the related studies spread out in the view of empathy,self-control and money utility evaluation.Researches from the perspective of psychological need mainly focus on the compensation function for individuals' internal needs of a product with certain characterization or some kind of consumer behavior.However,this paper contends that sometimes consumer behavior itself can be a threat to the internal needs of individuals.As a recessive feature,uncertainty exists widely in consumers' daily product and service choices,and merchants even begin to drive marketing performance by deliberately creating uncertainty.It remains unclear that how social exclusion affects individuals' attitudes toward products and services involving uncertainty.Although traditional theory support that consumers tend to evade uncertainty in consumption,this paper is the first one which attempts to explore the formation mechanism of individuals' uncertainty avoidance consumer preferences based on inherent needs in the context of social exclusion.Under the background above,this paper puts forward the theoretical framework of “social exclusion – desire for control – uncertainty consumer preferences”.Based on the sources of uncertainty in individuals' consumption decision-making,this paper chooses new product?uncertainty promotion(information uncertainty)and opaque packaging product(incomplete information)to capture the impact of social exclusion on the individuals' uncertainty consumer preferences.Regarding that social exclusion is a negative experience threatens the individuals' cognition,mentality and behavior,this paper,from the perspective of psychological resource hypothesis,and based on the theory of “money as social resource” and “fluid compensation” in meaning maintenance model,puts situational moderator—money priming and personality moderator — self-affirmation into the main theoretical framework to text the influences of the two on consumer behaviors of the excluded individuals.So far,this paper constructs a theoretical model that takes psychological needs as internal mechanism and double coping resources as the boundary conditions,in order to provide a more comprehensive explanation to the formation mechanism of individuals' uncertainty avoidance consumer preferences under the impact of social exclusion.After completing the review of current literature,this paper puts forward the theoretical framework and research hypotheses,and tests these hypotheses through four studies,consisted of seven laboratory experiments and a field experiment.Specifically,three experiments in the first study verifies the robustness of main effect: the impact of social exclusion on individuals' uncertainty consumer preferences,by using new product,opaque packaging product and uncertainty promotion as experimental material respectively.On this basis,the second study verifies the mediating role of desire for control between social exclusion and individuals' uncertainty consumer preferences through two experiments.In order to consolidate the reliability of mediating role of desire for control,this paper adopts not only the self-report method to measure individuals' control needs,but also the method which directly deprived of personal control.At the same time,it rules out the alternative explanations of the need to belong,self-esteem,meaningful existence and moods.The two experiments of study 3 respectively verify the moderating role of money priming and self-affirmation between social exclusion and individuals' uncertainty consumer preferences.Finally,through a field experiment,the forth study carries out the revalidation of individuals' uncertainty avoidance consumer preferences under the impact of social exclusion on the other manifestations of uncertain consumption scenarios.More importantly,it extends the context of individuals' uncertainty avoidance consumer preferences from an immediate reaction to social exclusion under the laboratory environment to the behavior result from a long-term social exclusion.Thus,the conclusions of this study can be summarized as the following five points: Firstly,social exclusion will increase individuals' uncertainty avoidance consumer preferences.Compared with social inclusion consumers,socially excluded consumers exhibit less preference for products and services involving uncertainty,such as new product,opaque packaging product and uncertainty promotion.However,social exclusion does not affect consumers' preference for traditional product and transparent packaging product.Secondly,the impact of social exclusion on consumers' uncertainty preferences is mediated by consumers' desire for control.Thirdly,money priming moderating the impact of social exclusion on consumers' uncertainty preferences.When the manipulation of money priming is not actived,social exclusion increases consumers' uncertainty avoidance preferences,however,social exclusion will no longer affect consumers' uncertainty preferences when engaging in money priming.Moreover,the mediating role of desire for control between social exclusion and consumers' uncertainty preferences is moderated by money priming.The mediating role of desire for control exists when consumers do not engage in money priming,and the mediating role of desire for control does not exist when consumers engage in money priming.Forthly,self-affirmation moderating the impact of social exclusion on consumers' uncertainty preferences.When not engage in self-affirmation,social exclusion increases consumers' uncertainty avoidance preferences,however,social exclusion will no longer affect consumers' uncertainty preferences when engaging in self-affirmation.Moreover,the mediating role of desire for control between social exclusion and consumers' uncertainty preferences is moderated by self-affirmation.The mediating role of desire for control exists when consumers do not engage in self-affirmation,and the mediating role of desire for control does not exist when consumers engage in self-affirmation.Fifthly,the impact of social exclusion on consumers' uncertainty preferences reveal not only in new product,opaque packaging product and uncertainty promotion listed in the paper,but also in the “lucky bag” promotion,online shopping and more uncertain consumption scenarios,and consumers' uncertainty avoidance preferences still remain under long-term social exclusion.In conclusion,this paper uncovers the formation mechanism of another consumer behavior – uncertainty avoidance consumer preferences,under social exclusion from the perspective of inner desire for control,then establishes a complete consumer behavior model from external stimulus to internal needs,which breaks through the limitations of the current research on social exclusion or personal control,and it also suggests that sometimes consumer behavior itself can be a threat to the psychological needs of individuals.Based on the psychological resource perspective of individuals' threat coping,the introduction of two moderating variables,namely,money priming and self-affirmation,to some extent,also fills the gap in current research,which neglect the moderating factors related to individuals' coping styles,when discuss the buffering mechanism on basic needs threat in the reflexive stage of social exclusion.For marketing applications,the conclusions of this paper have important practical significance for enterprises and marketers to grasp consumer psychology,formulate new marketing strategies and adjust old marketing methods.This paper proposes that enterprises should further explore the additional attributes and value of products and services,pay attention to the fact that uncertainty involved in products and services act as a barrier to consumer adoption,master the characteristics of consumer behavior under social exclusion,and make full use of the situational cues of money priming and self-affirmation. |
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