How Resource Scarcity Influences the Preference for Counterhedonic Consumption

Abstract

Eight studies show that resource scarcity can influence consumers’ preference for counterhedonic consumption, and that the sense of control is an underlying driver of this effect. Using a large-scale field dataset covering 82 countries over a 10-year period, study 1 showed that individuals from countries with greater resources consumed horror movies to a greater extent, but this pattern was not found for other movie genres such as romance or documentary. The remaining studies used diverse experimental approaches and counterhedonic consumption contexts (e.g., movie, novel, haunted house attraction, game) to provide causal and process evidence. Specifically, inducing perceived resource scarcity lowered participants’ preference for counterhedonic consumption (studies 2 A-2C). Consistent with the sense-of-control based mechanism, experimentally lowering participants’ sense of control or boosting it moderated the effect of perceived resource scarcity on their preference for counterhedonic consumption (studies 3 A-3B). The degradation of the sense of control due to perceived resource scarcity mediated the effect (studies 4–5). These results add to the literature on conterhedonic consumption as well as resource scarcity, and have important managerial implications.

Pleasure Through Pain: An Empirical Examination of Benign Masochism in Tourism

“…As a result, future research is invited to investigate BM in other cultural contexts to determine if BM levels differ across countries and is expressed in the same behaviors. Initial research has, for example, suggested that counter-hedonic consumption is higher in countries with abundant resources (Yang and Zhang 2021), so such macroenvironmental factors represent an interesting avenue for future studies. Second, we measured BM at one point in time, but future research could investigate BM across time.…”

“…Second, we measured BM at one point in time, but future research could investigate BM across time. Indeed, while voluntary consumption of painful activities can be traced far back historically (Klein 2014), some authors seem to suggest that such consumption is increasing in magnitude in modern societies (Scott, Cayla, and Cova 2017; Yang and Zhang 2021). Importantly, it is also unclear how the pandemic has impacted BM tendencies.…”

The effect of financial scarcity on discretionary spending, borrowing, and investing

“…Extant research in marketing and psychology has investigated scarcity as being both objective or subjective, in which resource scarcity is defined as the real or perceived lack of financial capital that the consumer invests in order to acquire and use goods and services (Yang and Zhang 2021;Hamilton 2021;Hamilton et al 2019;Ravi and Zhu 2016;Roux et al 2015). Consistently, in this research, we define financial scarcity as the condition in which consumers are not able to obtain what they want given their real or perceived lack of financial resources.…”

In and out of control: Personal control and consumer behavior

“…Finally, research on counterhedonic products (products designed to evoke negative emotions for enjoyment purposes—e.g., haunted houses) finds that experiencing resource scarcity lowers preferences for counterhedonic consumption because of feelings of low control. In one interesting study, using a dataset covering 82 countries over a 10‐year period, researchers demonstrated that consumers from richer (high control) countries consumed horror movies to a greater extent than those from poorer (low control) countries (Yang & Zhang, 2022).…”

“…In one interesting study, using a dataset covering 82 countries over a 10-year period, researchers demonstrated that consumers from richer (high control) countries consumed horror movies to a greater extent than those from poorer (low control) countries (Yang & Zhang, 2022).…”