Has the COVID-19 pandemic made us more materialistic? The effect of COVID-19 and lockdown restrictions on the endorsement of materialism

The influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors on e-WOM behaviour: The role of psychological impact during the time of COVID-19 crisis

This investigation unearths the trait antecedents of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational drivers and their consequences on attitude towards e-WOM of social mobile app users. Additionally, this study attempts to explore the moderating role of psychological impact on attitude towards e-WOM when COVID-19 is ravaging the world. Following the descriptive research method, the survey was carried out among convenience sample respondents of 627 social mobile app users. The outcome brought out that extraversion had a favourable influence on opinion leadership, customer engagement, and self-expression for sharing consumption related information during the pandemic. Likewise, materialism also had a strong effect on self-expression. Nonetheless, extraversion and materialism failed to affect self-presentation motives. And, self-presentation was observed influencing attitude towards e-WOM negatively. The outcome of the study demonstrates that individuals with high psychological impact have a strong motivation to involve in customer engagement to participate in e-WOM communication. Motivational drivers such as self-expression, opinion leadership, and customer engagement had a significant effect on attitude towards e-WOM for the whole sample analysis. This investigation contributes to existing literature of e-WOM behaviour and widens the scope of self-presentation theory, social exchange theory, theory of planned behaviour etc. Finally, this research also assists marketers and practitioners to take better decision-making on developing a social media advertising and campaign using the framework.

Hypocrisy in ethical consumption

When making consumption choices, people often fail to meet their own standards of both ethics and frugality. People also generally tend to demand more of others than they do of themselves. But little is known about how these different types of hypocrisy interact, particularly in relation to attitudes toward ethical consumption. In three experiments, we integrate research methods using anchoring and hypocrisy within the context of ethical consumption. Across three experiments, we find a default expectation that people (particularly people other than ourselves) should spend less on consumer items than they actually do. This default position can be inverted by making the ethical context of consumption salient, whereby the expectation is then that people (particularly other people) should spend more on consumer items than they actually do. Experiments 2 and 3 show that a moderate price anchor for ethical consumption is sufficient to shift expected standards for other people, but a higher price anchor is required to shift expected standards in personal behaviour. We discuss the countervailing roles of frugality and ethical consumption in understanding hypocrisy and ethical decision-making.

How Are Material Values and Voluntary Simplicity Lifestyle Related to Attitudes and Intentions toward Commercial Sharing during the COVID-19 Pandemic? Evidence from Japan

This paper attempts to elucidate how material values (MV) and voluntary simplicity lifestyle (VSL) are related to Japanese consumers’ attitudes and intentions toward commercial sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper provides the following findings by employing the two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to analyze the data (n = 750) collected in Japan during the pandemic from people with no experience in commercial sharing. (1) MV has a positive effect on attitudes. (2) VSL is divided into “simplicity,” “long-term usage,” and “planned buying.” (3) Simplicity and planned buying are negatively related to MV, but long-term usage is not significantly related to MV. (4) Simplicity and long-term usage significantly affect attitudes, whereas planned buying does not. (5) Attitudes and subjective norms have positive effects on intentions. Consequently, two conflicting consumption orientations, MV and VSL, positively affect consumers’ responses toward commercial sharing in a pandemic context. The author suggests that although the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic exists now, the sharing economy can still contribute to enhancing sustainability and alleviating technological inequality by attracting people with different values and lifestyles.