Abstract:

Environmental disorderliness resulting from product abundance and excessiveness has become ubiquitous and cannot be avoided. However, the research on the influence of environmental disorderliness on consumers' product choices is limited, and this paper attempts to fill in this gap. Specifically, this paper innovatively proposes that environmental disorderliness has a positive effect on consumers’ variety-seeking behavior, which is sequentially mediated by self-efficacy threat and perceived preference uncertainty. Through one pilot and four experiments, this paper finds that environmental disorder can enhance variety-seeking behavior in real environment, offline shopping environment, working environment, and online product display situation. Disorderly environment will threaten consumers' self-efficacy, which further increases their perceived uncertainty about future preference, and consequently bolsters their variety-seeking tendencies in the subsequent consumption choices.

Key words: environmental disorderliness, variety-seeking, self-efficacy threat, future preference uncertainty