Tags:Consumer Choice, Crowding, Innovativeness, Premium, Safety, Scarcity, Social Density, Temperature and Uniqueness
Abstract:
Environmental contexts, like temperature and social density, can influence consumers' decision making considerably. The literature explains temperature and social density’s downstream consequences (e.g., product preferences)—hitherto predominantly examined in isolation—as semantic fits or compensatory effects. Further, previous research established a bidirectional link between temperature and social proximity, but neglected that temperature and social density do not always correlate. We address this research gap by not only conducting a preregistered experiment with an orthogonal design on temperature and social density, but also by measuring product preferences within various categories (innovativeness, premium, safety, scarcity, and uniqueness). Following previous research, we hypothesize that temperature and social density have similar effects, but find they have distinct ones. We find compensatory effects for safety and premium products, i.e., under cold or neutral temperature conditions the high tier choices increase when the social density is high, but this does not apply to warm conditions—suggesting that warmth has an attenuating effect. Warmth attenuates the preference for innovative products, which also profit partly from lower social density. Scarce and unique products’ results are inconclusive. Our findings suggest that temperature and social density have complex consequences for decision making, reveal product-category-specific effects, and need follow-up research.
Effects of Temperature and Social Density on Consumer Choices with Multiple Options