A Study On The Domain Specificity Of Consumers' Cuteness Perception In Risk Decision-makin

The population of cuteness culture has won the flow and market for enterprises and created a series of business opportunities.While creating the film market,some cartoon images,such as Pikachu and Minions,have also produced a series of peripheral derivatives,which are applied in the clothing and food industry to attract consumers.Cute elements also draw consumer’s attention through Emojis,audio and other social media,attracting large number of consumers to use them.With the increasingly popularity of cuteness into consumer’s daily life,it is particularly important for enterprises to understand how cuteness,especially different types of cuteness,affect consumer’s cognition and behavior.Since 1943,Nobel laureate Conrad Lorenz has pointed out that the cute characteristics of infants can activate adults’ nurture motivation,to ensure that infants are properly taken care of,which is a kind of physiological evolution of adaptation,to maintain human continuity.Subsequently,scholars have studied the identification characteristics and influence mechanism of cuteness.And now,cuteness has divided into kindchenschema cuteness and whimsical cuteness.The former one draws on the characteristics of baby schema,which is primed as “vulnerable,na?ve,caretaking”,while the latter one is a kind of “fun,playful” stimulant(e.g.,an ice-cream scoop shaped like a miniature person),which can promote individual’s indulgent consumption.Most of the researches focus on kindchenschema cuteness,and little known about the different mechanism among two kinds of cuteness.Nowadays,more and more enterprises use cute elements in marketing activities.Cute elements,especially kindchenschema elements,are often used in donation,prosocial behavior,such as “big eyes girl” in a hope project.The funny and playful elements are mostly used in entertainment industries seeking risk and profit,such as doll machine,blind box,lottery game and so on.In the field of insurance,it is more suitable for infants to convey and create risk-aversion awareness.For example,in the automobile insurance advertisement of Nationwide Insurance company in the United States.The infant element can stimulate the idea of car owners to protect their cars,insure their cars and avoid risks.With more and more enterprises using cute elements in marketing activities.Some new questions naturally arise what the difference mechanism between different kinds of cuteness.Specifically,why do the insurance industry often use baby schema cuteness,while lottery and blind box games show whimsical cuteness a lot? Previous studies lack in exploring the mechanism for distinguishing different kinds of cuteness,and also ignore the influence of cuteness on risk preference.There are many risk decisions in life,such as stock investment,purchase decision making,lottery games,etc.It’s essential for enterprises to find out how cute elements affect consumers’ risk preference in decision-making,and how market and public policy managers or promote these behaviors.Although there is a lack of research on the risk preference and cuteness,it still shows little clues.For example,after exposure to kindchenschema cuteness,individuals become more careful and cautious in behavior.However,risk preference is domain specific,that is,different risk preference is affected by the unique factors in their field.The existing literature cannot answer these questions about whether cuteness affects consumers’ risk preference,which risk field it acts on,and whether the two kinds of cuteness have different effects on individual risk preference,what is the explanation mechanism and whether they have different effects on different risk fields such as financial risk,social risk and ethical risk.Risk decision-making in these fields is closely related to consumer’s life.To understand how cuteness affects individual risk preference in these fields,enterprises can accurately use a cute element to act on a certain field and influence consumers’ risk decision-making.Based on the above background,combined with the relevant theoretical analysis,this research includes four researches,through the experimental method to study how cuteness affect individual’s risk preference.In first research,we focus on the relationship between cuteness and five risk fields(i.e.,financial,social,recreational,ethical and health risks),and found that cuteness only had significant impact on financial and social risk fields.Based on the results of first research,the second and third research explored the influence of cuteness on individual risk preference in financial and social fields respectively,and analyzed the explanation mechanism and boundary conditions.The fourth research explored that the risk preference of cuteness in financial and social was indeed determined by the unique mechanism in their respective fields,which proved that cuteness had domain specificity in risk decisionmaking.The details were as follows:In the first research(Chapter 3),three experiments were designed to explore the influence of cuteness on five risk domains with the DOSPERT scales.The results showed that compared with the control group,the kindchenschema cuteness had a significant risk aversion tendency in the financial risk and social risk field,while the whimsical cuteness had a significant risk seeking tendency only in the financial risk field,while in the ethical,health and recreational risk fields,the two kinds of cuteness had no significant difference with the risk preference,and both tend to be risk averse.In the second research(Chapter 4),four experiments were designed with the lottery,financial decision-making and reward selection scenarios to explore the influence mechanism and boundary conditions of cuteness in the field of financial risk.The results show that,kindchenschema(vs.whimsical)cute stimuli induce consumer prefer risk aversion(vs.risk seeking)behavior through the mediation effect of prevention(promotion)focus.And then employing two financial products from different payoffs of investments(greater losses vs.greater gains)suggests a boundary condition that the effect of cuteness on risk preference,which further confirms the mechanism of regulatory focus.Kindchenschema cuteness induce consumer prefer risk aversion through activating prevention focus only with greater losses(vs.greater gains)financial products.Whimsical cuteness induce consumer prefer risk seeking through activating promotion focus only with greater gains financial products.In the third research(Chapter 5),four experiments were designed with purchase decision-making,consumer persuasion and social norms scenarios to explore the influence and mechanism of kindchenschema cuteness in the field of social risk.The results show that compared with the control group and whimsical cuteness group,kindchenschema cuteness can activate consumer’s communal orientation,and then prefer risk aversion.Consumers exposed to kindchenschema cuteness tend to believe social risk has more serious consequences and embarrassment,resulting in consumer conformity behavior,and the purchase intention of products with social risk is significantly reduced.In the fourth research(Chapter 6),two experiments were designed to measure the individual’s risk preference in financial and social fields.We both measured the regulatory focus state and interpersonal relationship orientation.The results show that in the field of financial risk,regulatory orientation is the unique mechanism of cuteness influencing risk preference,while in the field of social risk,interpersonal relationship orientation is the unique mechanism of cuteness influencing risk preference.For example,kindchenschema cuteness induces both prevention focus and communal orientation,but in the field of financial risk,only prevention focus has a mediating effect.Thus,it is further verified that the mechanisms effects of cuteness on risk preference is risk-domain specificity.This research explored the explanatory mechanism and boundary conditions of cuteness in the field of risk through four researches.To explore how cuteness affects individual risk preference,we need to clarify the specificity of risk domain.This paper finds that two kinds of cuteness affect risk preference in financial and social risk fields There are different interpretation mechanisms and domain specificity.The results show that the theoretical contribution of cuteness in risk field,and the internal explanation mechanism for better understanding the two kinds of cuteness.The results are also helpful for enterprises to better understand and use the two cute elements in the financial field(e.g.,lottery games,financial decision-making,product selection)and social risk(e.g.,consumer conformity behavior,purchase decision-making and persuasion),and lay a foundation for the application of cute elements in risk field.In addition,the results of this study also have certain reference value for policy makers(e.g.,designing social norms and guidelines)and individual consumers(e.g.,avoiding gambling and creating close interpersonal relationships).Finally,the limitations and future research directions of this research are put forward.