Journal of Consumer Affairs最新文献

This article created a consumer and an academic mindfulness dictionary to better understand consumers', academics', and marketers' perceptions of mindfulness. A consumer survey and text mining methods were used to create the consumer dictionary, and an extensive review of mindfulness definitions was used for the academic dictionary. The consumer dictionary described mindfulness more in terms of affect and resulting outcomes, while the academic dictionary was more cognitive and process-oriented. The dictionaries were then applied to marketers' communications from a database of 883 company descriptions that were classified as mindful. The results showed that marketers used more terms from the consumer dictionary than the academic dictionary. The article discusses the potential for consumers to be vulnerable to marketers' communication strategies, characterized as McMindfulness and mindful washing, that can impact consumers' well-being and brand relationships.

Nowadays, it is of vital importance to make students aware of the problems that can be generated by the deterioration of the environment. The purpose of this study is to establish a suitable mechanism to predict behavior and to investigate the actions that most motivate students to participate in sustainability activities both on and off campus. To achieve this objective, a sample of 1446 students from nine Latin American universities is analyzed using the CHAID algorithm as a segmentation technique. In this way, the aim is to identify the most relevant actions that allow students to be segmented according to their motivations. From a theoretical point of view, the effectiveness of this segmentation technique in the context of environmental sustainability is confirmed, and from a practical point of view, university managers are provided with guidelines on the most effective measures to motivate students to develop pro-environmental behavior.

Despite being a risky and controversial business model, little research has investigated personal characteristics that increase attraction to multi-level marketing business opportunities like Amway and Herbalife. A two-wave survey (N_total = 1503) revealed that attraction to multi-level marketing opportunities was associated with stronger extrinsic life goals (for becoming rich, famous, and attractive), belief systems related to spirituality and thought-action fusion (i.e., the belief that thoughts alone create reality), and a cognitive decision-making style that emphasizes intuitive over rational thinking. Intrinsic psychological needs (e.g., for control and meaning) showed the least consistent associations. Based on these findings, we provide guidance for consumer advocates and policy makers to consider individual psychological factors in education campaigns to improve decision making and participant wellbeing.

Mindfulness is emerging as a contemplative tool that may positively influence consumers' preference for virtue food, thus supporting health and well-being. However, it remains unclear which consumer groups may benefit the most from mindfulness. Previous research has demonstrated that consumers who experienced unpredictable environments in low socioeconomic households as children exhibit the likelihood of an adaptive chronic preference for vice food. Against this backdrop, the current research explores how mindfulness can support consumers who experienced low socioeconomic environments as children and further sheds light on the psychological mechanism, reduced impulsivity, for increased virtue food choice. This effect is tested across different manipulations of mindfulness and virtue food contexts. The research also introduces the unique mindfulness intervention of object visualization for helping stabilize the present-moment for consumers. Overall, the findings show that mindfulness may be a potential solution to impulsivity and increase preference for virtue food, supporting consumers in health and well-being.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the significant impact of health conditions on household finance. Traditional measures of financial resilience ignored households' ability to adjust to labor income disruptions. We proposed a more comprehensive two-tier measure of financial resilience by accounting for nonlabor income and spending adjustments in the face of income loss associated with health situations. Using this measure, we evaluated the financial resilience of two-worker households with members having COVID-19 health risk conditions and other mental and physical chronic diseases. Our findings showed that households with cancer patients were more financially resilient yet those having obese members were less financially resilient. Decomposition of the financial resilience measure revealed differences in financial resources allocation—households with cancer patients allocated more wealth to noncash financial assets, whereas households with obese members saved less and spent more. Our findings shed light on financial planning practices and public policies of emergency assistance.

Many people have unsuitable life insurance cover or no cover at all. In this study, we survey consumers about their readiness to purchase life insurance. Consumers rate their own “decision state” from “pre-aware” of life insurance to “aware,” “interested” or “capable” of deciding to purchase. We also collect data on factors associated with progress along the path to purchase. We find that personal values partly determine life insurance decision states. Values matter in addition to the needs of dependents, bequest intentions, and financial literacy. Consumers who place more value on benevolence and self-direction are more likely to be aware of life insurance. Our results suggest strategies to promote suitable life insurance cover by targeting factors that help progress through each decision state. Insurance providers could thus prime benevolence and self-direction in advertising and product information.

This study investigated the influence of financial socialization on financial distress and demonstrated the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive ability channels through which this relation operates. Using data from a nationally representative sample of adult US residents, the results showed that adults in the bottom quintile of financial socialization are significantly more likely to experience financial distress than those in the top quintile. We also provide evidence that financial socialization is related to financial distress both directly and indirectly through cognitive ability measures of financial knowledge and financial skills, as well as the noncognitive ability measure of financial self-control. The findings highlight the importance of financial socialization in familial contexts. Implications for personal finance advocates, financial educators, children and family service providers, and policymakers are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated factors influence customers' stockpiling intentions. This study examines the impact of various factors on customers' stockpiling intentions. It develops a model combining threat severity and fear of COVID-19, customer well-being dimensions, and constructs relating to the theories of planned behavior and competitive arousal to explain the effect of these on stockpiling intentions. Adopting a quantitative design, we analyzed data from 476 respondents using covariance-based structural equation modeling. The empirical results confirm that threat severity (with the fear of COVID-19 as a mediator) and fear of COVID-19 positively influenced individuals' attitudes toward stockpiling. Additionally, a positive attitude toward stockpiling, subjective norms that support stockpiling, the degree of perceived behavioral control, perceived scarcity, and time pressure positively influence stockpiling intentions. This study's findings thus contribute to a better understanding of customers' stockpiling intentions during a crisis and assist policymakers in developing effective COVID-19 response and recovery strategies.

The purpose of this study is to center transgender consumers in the conceptualizations between marketplace marginalization and digital spaces. We examine transgender crowdfunding as a hashtag-bounded digital space created by and for the transgender community–namely, the #TransCrowdFund digital space on Twitter. We draw on trans digital geographies as a novel analytical lens to focus attention on transgender consumers' unique experiences in and between digital spaces. Through qualitative hashtag mapping, we analyzed a sample of 200 Twitter profiles and accompanying tweets drawn from individuals using the #TransCrowdFund hashtag. Findings suggest transgender consumers utilize crowdfunding as a hashtag-bounded digital space in three ways: accessing networks, narrativizing needs, and signaling identity. Within each of these functional uses, underlying tensions arise in navigating transphobic marketplace marginalization, unique to transgender consumer well-being. Our research demonstrates the power of centering transgender consumers–both conceptually and contextually–in consumer research and offers implications for scholars and policy makers.