Thesis Defense

Thesis Defense

VARIETY SEEKING BAHAVIOR AMONG THE POOR

The influence of financial dissatisfaction on variety seeking in healthy and unhealthy food resources.

› Introduction

› Theoretical Framework › Methodology

› Increasing wealth gap in most developed countries

› Income inequality has increased over the past 25 years

› Explorative approach

› Novell topic: poverty feelings

 research on the effect of financial

dissatisfaction on consumption is still limited (Tully et al. 2015)

› Link psychological processes to marketing concept

› The aim of my research is to explore if financial dissatisfaction influences variety seeking

› Psychological and behavioral consequences of poverty feelings:

 Short-term needs over long-term goals (Bickel et

al. 2016)

 Stress, anger, and resentment (Wilkinson and Pickett

2009)

 Harmful to own health (Katz and Hofer 1994; Mani et al.

› Overcome this situation by finding ways of gaining resources:

 Play the lottery more often (Blalock, Just, and Simon

2007)

 Compensate with increased labor supply (Bowles

and Park 2005)

 Choose food that is higher in calories (Briers and

Laporte 2013)

 Acquire not only food but also non-food

› Resource exchange theory (Foa and Foa 1974) › Financial and food resources are

interchangeable (Briers et al. 2006; Nelson and Morrison 2005; Pettijohn and Jungeberg 2004)

› People seek to acquire resources that are not directly related to

› The last decade marketers have studied

tendency of consumers to seek variety among the purchases they make

› In multiple purchases for future consumption consumers try to simplify the shopping task by relying on choice heuristics (Hoyer and Ridgway 1984; Orth 2005; Orth and Bourrain 2005; Raju 1980, 1983; Van Trijp and Steenkamp 1992)

› Consumers seek more variety in their

purchases in attempt to minimize conflict and difficulty associated with their choice (Goodman and Vohs 2013)

› Consumers seek variety in their attempt to

› Affective state influences variety seeking

 Sad individuals tend to incorporate more

variety seeking (Chieng-Huang 2012) › Little empirical evidence

› Specific state of mind: financial dissatisfaction

 Maximize utility and interchangeable

resources

 Consume food for its energy value in order to

restore level of satisfaction

 Minimize conflict and difficulty associated with

› H1: Relative financial dissatisfaction increases variety seeking behavior of consumers

› To explore the boundaries of this effect in food domains we compare healthy and unhealthy food choices

› H2a: Financially dissatisfied people specifically seek more variety in unhealthy food resources › H2b: Financially dissatisfied people seek more

› Lachman and Weaver (1998) provide evidence that psychosocial variables play a role in social class differences

› Explore new potential underlying mechanisms of variety seeking

› H3: Personal sense of control mediates the relationship between financial dissatisfaction and variety seeking

Financial

(dis)satisfaction Sense of Control Variety Seeking

› 2 financially (satisfied vs dissatisfied) x 2 variety seeking (healthy vs unhealthy food domain) between participants design

› Participants were recruited by Amazon Mechanical Turk

› 291 MTurk participants completed the study in exchange for a financial compensation of $0.70

› N = 285 participants

› To induce financially dissatisfied feelings the procedure that has been used in previous

literature has been adopted (Haisley, Mostafa, and

Loewenstein 2008; Nelson and Morrison 2005; Briers and Laporte 2013) › To measure participants sense of control the

approach described by Lachman and Weaver (1998) was adopted

2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0

Financial dissatisfaction Financial satisfaction

› main effect for financial dissatisfaction on variety seeking (F (1, 281) = 5.058, p = 0.025)

› main effect of food type on variety seeking (F (1, 281) = 5.520, p = 0.019)

› no significant interaction effect (F (1, 281) = 0.208, p = 0.648) 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 Financial

dissatisfaction satisfactionFinancial

› Financial dissatisfaction correlates with sense of control and PANAS (p < 0.01)

› No mediation and/or other moderation effects occur

› Variety seeking behavior increases among people who experience relative financial

dissatisfaction (H1)

› Financial dissatisfaction increases a

generalized tendency for variety seeking regardless of the food domain (H2)

› Limitations:

 Limited sample size, resulting in an average

of about 70 person per cell

 Sense of control captured a different concept

› Future research:

 Investigate other intrapersonal factors that

could mediate the relationship

 Affective indicators such as individuals’

subjective mood states

 Investigate how marketing actions like price