Navigating Shared Consumption Experiences: Clarity About a Partner’s Interests Increases Enjoyment

Abstract

Consumers frequently engage in activities with others, such as visiting an art gallery with a friend or going to a sports match with a family member, and they tend to assume that sharing experiences with another person will make them more enjoyable (Caprariello and Reis 2013; Ratner and Hamilton 2015). However, navigating a shared experience – making decisions about pacing, sequencing and interacting with another person as the experience unfolds – can take consumers’ attention away from the activity, potentially reducing their enjoyment. In a series of studies in which consumers engage in real consumption experiences, we show that lack of clarity about a partner’s interests can distract consumers, making it difficult for them to focus on the shared activity and reducing their enjoyment of shared experiences relative to solo experiences. Notably, simple interventions can increase clarity of a partner’s interests and consumers’ enjoyment of shared activities, providing tools for service providers who want to retain customers and benefit from positive word-of-mouth.

We Succeeded Together, Now What: Relationship Power and Sequential Decisions in Couples’ Joint Goal Pursuits

“…Even though individual sequential goal pursuit decisions have been studied (e.g., Fishbach and Dhar 2005;Fishbach, Dhar, and Zhang 2006;Khan and Dhar 2006;May and Irmak 2014;Wilcox et al 2009), this is the first research to examine couples' sequential consumer decisions after the experience of joint goal progress. Thus, we contribute to recent work studying the interpersonal dynamics in joint goal pursuits and experiences (Brick et al 2018;Dzhogleva and Lamberton 2014;VanDellen and Baker 2011;Wu et al 2021). Although prior work has focused on individual or joint decisions in isolation, to the best of our knowledge, this article is the first to explore the influence of joint goal outcomes on individual decisions, as consumers move in and out of decision-making dyads.…”

Experiential AR/VR: a consumer and service framework and research agenda

“…, 2019), positive or negative (Barari et al. , 2020), individual or shared (Wu et al. , 2021), and present different degrees of co-creation between the consumer and the firm (Jakkola et al.…”

“…Research focusing on consumption in either physical or virtual places has often adopted a different dimensionality typology for experiences, classifying those experiences as entertainment, aesthetic, escapism and education (Pine and Gilmore, 1998). In relation to its nature, there is agreement in the literature that experiences, along the different phases of the consumer journey, may be ordinary or extraordinary (Skandalis et al, 2019), positive or negative (Barari et al, 2020), individual or shared (Wu et al, 2021), and present different degrees of co-creation between the consumer and the firm (Jakkola et al, 2015).…”

“…Similar to AR experiences, VR experiences are theorised in the literature as consumer-centred (De Regt et al, 2021), multi-sensory (Farah et al, 2019;Flavi an et al, 2021;Serino et al, 2018), interactive (De Regt et al, 2021;Hudson et al, 2019;Young et al, 2021), imaginary (Young et al, 2021) and immersive (Hudson et al, 2019;Ijaz et al, 2020;Rosa et al, 2016;Young et al, 2021). The latter characteristic relates to the ability of VR experiences to enable "flow" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), an optimal state occurring when consumers are fully immersed in an activity or an overall sense of absorption when consumers are deeply engaged in an activity (Atzeni et al, 2021;Han et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2021). Key conceptualisations of VR experiences are reported in Table 2.…”

Family responses to resource scarcity

“…During shopping, a parent may consider balancing a partner's preferences with a child's in choosing ingredients for a meal, debate the merits of utilising more time to cook a meal from scratch, versus spending more money to buy a partially prepared version, or decide to invest more time to find good deals, substituting time for money (Hoch et al, 1995). Second, shared, family consumption involves interactions (Wu et al, 2021), as families navigate complex, inter-related journeys, ranging from routine meal times (Epp & Price, 2018) to special vacations (Epp & Price, 2011). Finally, multiple members contribute resources to support the family's consumption of meals (Epp & Price, 2018), vacations (Epp & Price, 2011), child care (Epp & Velagaleti, 2014), pet care (Bettany & Kerrane, 2018), and technology (Bettany & Kerrane, 2016;Nash et al, 2018).…”