ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2020, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (10): 1237-1252.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.01237

• 研究报告 • 上一篇    

拥挤影响消费者情绪和购物反应的元分析

柳武妹1, 马增光2(), 卫旭华1   

  1. 1兰州大学管理学院, 兰州 730000
    2东北大学工商管理学院, 沈阳 110167
  • 收稿日期:2019-11-15 发布日期:2020-08-24 出版日期:2020-10-25
  • 通讯作者: 马增光 E-mail:xmgyx1496@163.com
  • 基金资助:
    * 国家自然科学基金面上项目(71972092);国家自然科学基金面上项目(71972093);中央高校基本科研业务费专项资金项目(人文社科类)(2020jbkytd003);甘肃省社科规划面上项目(YB033)

A meta-analysis of the effect of crowding on consumers’ emotional reactions and shopping-related behavioral reactions

LIU Wumei1, MA Zengguang2(), WEI Xuhua1   

  1. 1School of Management, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
    2School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110167, China
  • Received:2019-11-15 Online:2020-08-24 Published:2020-10-25
  • Contact: MA Zengguang E-mail:xmgyx1496@163.com

摘要:

拥挤是由社会(人群)运动空间和物理空间受限引发的一种主观感受和客观状态。随着消费者所处的环境越来越拥挤, 近些年来消费者行为领域对拥挤的关注逐渐增多, 但目前的研究结论并不一致。本文通过元分析方法获得了38个研究、81个样本的149个效应值, 分别探讨了两类拥挤对消费者情绪和购物反应(趋近型购物反应与回避型购物反应)的影响, 并尝试找出以往研究结果表现出异质性的原因。从情绪层面来看, 社会拥挤正向影响消费者的消极情绪, 负向影响自主感知; 空间拥挤负向影响消费者积极情绪, 正向影响消极情绪。从购物反应层面来看, 社会拥挤会显著增强消费者的趋近型购物反应(ρ = 0.208, N = 28624), 增加风险规避, 并负向影响消费者的购物态度和意愿(ρ = -0.135, N = 10094); 空间拥挤对消费者趋近型购物反应的影响并不显著, 但能负向影响回避型购物反应(ρ = -0.409, N = 3223)。进一步的调节分析发现, 购物环境类型、研究情境的真实性、是否为学生样本、以及样本来源于西方国家还是东方国家等能够调节拥挤对消费者部分情绪和购物反应的影响。本文最后讨论了研究结果, 并对管理实践和未来研究提供了建议。

关键词: 社会拥挤, 空间拥挤, 消费者行为, 元分析

Abstract:

In the last few years, marketing scholars have been showing increasing interest in examining how crowding affects consumers’ emotions and behaviors. As a result, empirical literature on crowding has been growing rapidly. However, the crowding literature in Marketing has reported many inconsistent findings which need to be reconciled. The current meta-analysis paper aims to find out the reasons for heterogeneity in the findings of previous studies on crowding.
In this meta-analysis paper, the authors analyzed 149 effect sizes from 38 Eastern and Western empirical studies and 81 samples. Each author independently coded the data and discrepancies were resolved through discussion. Based on the measures of crowding used in each individual empirical paper, the authors coded two types of crowding, namely, social crowding and spatial crowding. First, the authors analyzed the effect of social crowding and spatial crowding on consumers’ emotional reactions and shopping reactions. Next, the authors examined the potential moderation effects of several contextual and methodological factors, including types of shopping environment, the reality of research designs, and sources of research samples (western countries vs. eastern countries, students vs. non-students).
This meta-analysis work obtained many interesting findings. First, this paper documents that social crowding significantly increased consumers’ negative emotions, but dramatically decreased consumers’ dominance. Social crowding was found to be positively correlated with the approach-related shopping responses (ρ = 0.208, N = 28624), and negatively correlated with consumer attitudes and willingness to shop (ρ = -0.135, N = 10094). Second, this paper documents that spatial crowding had a significant negative effect on avoidance-related shopping responses (ρ = -0.409, N = 3223), but had no significant influence on the approach- related shopping responses. Furthermore, moderation analyses showed that some of the aforementioned main effects were significantly moderated by types of shopping environment (utilitarian vs. hedonic), the reality of the context (virtual vs. real), and sources of research samples (western countries vs. eastern countries, students vs. non-students).
To summarize, this paper makes several important theoretical advances. First, drawing on several psychological theories on individuals’ reactions to the crowding environment, this paper builds a relatively unified research framework on consumers’ reactions to crowding. More importantly, this paper also tests this framework via meta-analyzing the effects of social crowding and those of spatial crowding on consumers’ emotional reactions and shopping-related behavioral responses, respectively. The results suggest that the overall influence of crowding on individuals’ emotion and behavior is not as large as that reported in previous studies. Second, by examining the moderation effects of several situational and methodology-related factors, this paper is able to explain why prior literature on crowding has reported inconsistent findings. Finally, this meta-analysis work also puts forth several intriguing and testable future research opportunities. In addition to advancing theory, the current paper's findings also have practical implications. Companies and managers should consider reducing consumers’ spatial crowding perceptions of the shopping environment. However, it is not wise for firms to universally adopt a policy of decreasing consumers’ perceptions of pedestrian volume.

Key words: social crowding, spatial crowding, consumer behavior, meta-analysis

中图分类号: