Influence Of Mental Simulation On Purchasing Intention:Intuitive Or Reflective?

With the fast growth of online shopping,first-hand experience of the products before purchasing decision making is not allowed.Previous studies have shown that observing others touching products induced mental simulation of experiencing the products.The vicarious experiences effectively promote purchasing.This process is associated with the activation of mirror neuron system in the brain.However,whether the positive effect of mental simulation on purchasing is constrained by consumers’ mental state,i.e.,whether mental simulation requires cognitive resources or it can be generated automatically,is stillunknown.According to Dual-process Theory,there’re two types of mindsets(or cognitive processes),i.e.,intuition and reflection.Intuitive cognitive processes are generated automatically,with a fast processing speed and requires no cognitive effort,while reflective cognitive processes are controlled and conscious processes,slow,and with high cost of cognitive resources.These two kinds of mindsets/cognitive processes can be induced through priming or time pressure manipulation.This thesis investigated whether the increased purchasing intention after mental simulation induced by observing others touching products is intuitive(automatic)or reflective(cognitive resource consuming).Answering this question could help businesses and consumers understand cognitive processes of purchasing decision making and provide new ideas for effective marketing and rational consumption.In this thesis,we manipulated intuitive/reflective mindsets in two ways in two studies.In Study 1,the decision time was manipulated.Participants were required to make a judgment of the purchasing intention of the product within 5 seconds(intuition)or after 5seconds(reflection).In study 2,participants were asked to recall a recent event in which they got a good result by making a decision using an intuitive/feeling or thinking/reasoning approach.Participants were all right-handed and were presented with pictures of products touched by a right hand or left hand.How the mental simulation processes affected individuals’ purchasing intention and whether the effect was modulated by intuitive/reflective mindsets was investigated.In study 1,the touch action was presented from the third-person perspective.Results showed that the difference between left-hand touch(corresponding to the subjects’ right-hand side)and right-hand touch(corresponding to the subjects’ left-hand side)was larger in intuition group than reflection group,no difference was found in reflection group.In Study 2,the touch action was also presented in the first-person perspective(the right-hand touch corresponds to the subjects’ right-hand side,and the left-hand touch corresponds to the subjects’ left-hand side).The results replicated the findings in Study 1,i.e.,in the first-person perspective condition,the difference between right-hand touch and left-hand touch was larger in intuition group than reflection group,while in the third-person perspective condition,the difference between left-hand touch and right-hand touch was larger in intuition group than reflection group.These consistent findings in Study 1 and 2 suggested that the positive effect of mental simulation of touching products on purchasing intention is intuitive(automatic),which is an irrational process unconstrained by cognitive resources.This conclusion has important practical significance.First of all,when showing others’ touching products in advertisements so as to enhance consumption intention,businesses need to induce consumers’ intuitive mindset at the same time,and to inhibit rational reflection process,so as to maximize the effect of mental simulation.Meanwhile,it also suggests that consumers can effectively resist marketing strategies that induce automatic cognitive process(mental simulation)by investing sufficient cognitive resources and thinking carefully when making decisions.