소비자는 언제 자기향상제품을 구매하는가?: 자기향상의 유형과 선망의 상호작용

초록

Consumers often make their purchase decisions depending on their emotions. The present research examines how consumers' preference for self-improvement products differs from the emotion of envy. Envy is the emotion individuals feel when they compare themselves to others. In the current research, the interplay between envy and the type of self-improvement was explored. In particular, this research focused on the physical and ethical domain of self-improvement which is mostly investigated in consumer decision making. For the physical self-improvement, herbal tea was used as a stimulus in which helps to firm skin, increase wellness. On the other hand, for the ethical domain, herbal tea was described as a fair trade product that helps manufacturers to enhance their economic and educational state. For envy manipulation, people recalled their experience either they felt benign or malicious envy. The result from the experiment showed that for the people who recalled malicious envy preferred the product that improves their self in the ethical domain rather than the physical domain. However, for the people who recalled benign envy, there was no significant difference in purchase intention between the ethical self-improvement product and the physical self-improvement product. The finding of this research proposes a further understanding of consumption patterns among consumers for the self-improvement product and the role of envy in decision- making.

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