Feeling Deficient but Reluctant to Improve: How Perceived Control Affects Consumers' Willingness to Purchase Self-Improvement Products Under Self-Deficit Situations

Frontiers in Psychology

Wei Song¹  Xiaotong Jin¹  Taiyang Zhao²  Jian Gao³ 

[1] Department of Marketing, Business School, Jilin University, Changchun, China;Department of Marketing, Business School, Jilin University, Changchun, China;Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy and Sociology, Jilin University, Changchun, China;Department of Marketing, School of Business and Administration, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, China;

关键词: self-deficit;    perceived control;    locus of control;    defense mechanism;    self-improvement products;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.544523

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

This study explored how perceived control affects consumers' willingness to purchase self-improvement products (WSP) under self-deficit situations. For this purpose, three experiments were conducted to examine the following sources of control: the controllability of self-deficits (Experiment 1); the locus of control (Experiment 2); and situational perceived control (Experiment 3). According to the results, higher perceived control can reduce consumers' defensive reaction tendencies, thus increasing their willingness to purchase products that claim to improve their current deficits. Moreover, the aforementioned effect only occurs in within-domain improvement products, rather than without-domain improvement products.

【 授权许可】

CC BY