Product design, social exclusion, and product preference: The mediating role of psychological ownership and the moderating role of product type

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of social exclusion and product design philosophy on consumers' design preference, its underlying mechanism, and boundary condition.We propose that rejected (vs. ignored) consumers should prefer a professional-(vs. user-) designed product through increased psychological ownership. Additionally, product complexity should moderate this effect, such that rejected (vs. ignored) consumers should prefer professional-designed products for low complexity products; for high-complexity products, we predict a preference for professionaldesigned products, regardless of consumers' state of social exclusion. Across four studies (including one using an incentive-compatible design), we empirically test these hypotheses using different operationalizations of social exclusion. Our research contributes to the literature on product design philosophy, social exclusion, and psychological ownership. The findings offer novel insights regarding ways for marketers to develop marketing strategies to effectively choose and advertise firms' design philosophy.

Residential mobility boosts new product adoption

“…The social environment shapes consumers' behavior (Aljukhadar et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2022; Park et al, 2022; Su et al, 2019; Wan et al, 2014). The current research focuses on a ubiquitous social factor that has received limited attention in consumer research—residential mobility (Koo, 2022; Oishi et al, 2012a; Wang et al, 2021) and examines how it influences consumer adoption.…”

The tip of the tongue: Language‐based chronic social exclusion and tipping as a refocusing strategy

“…Because of its pervasiveness and substantial implications, social exclusion has garnered much attention from researchers across the social sciences. However, within the consumer marketing realm, most previous research focuses on current and short‐term episodes of threats to social connections, but not on persistent or chronic social exclusion (Kim et al, 2023; Liu et al, 2022; Lyngdoh et al, 2023; Vinuales & Thomas, 2021). This study thus investigates if language‐based chronic social exclusion amongst nonnative speakers makes them spend and consume strategically by paying higher tips to divert others' attention from aspects of their stigmatized identity to non‐stigmatized aspects.…”