A Review and Prospects of Loneliness and Consumer Decision-making

Chen Nuoya; Li Junxian; Li Shaobo; Fan Xiucheng

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20220929.301

Summary

Loneliness is universal. It exists widely and deeply affects every individual in the society. In recent years, the “loneliness epidemic” has overlapped with the COVID-19 epidemic. In order to control the spread of virus, policies such as lockdown of the city, centralized isolation, working at home, and keeping social distance have deepened people’s sense of loneliness. Meanwhile, with the emergence of social problems such as the aging of China’s population, the increasing pressure of urban life, rural leftover children and empty-nested senior citizens, the scale of lonely consumers continues to expand, and the consumption volume caused by loneliness also continues to grow, which shows that it is of great practical significance to clarify the impact of loneliness on individual behavior, business operation and social pattern. The theme of loneliness and consumer decision-making has been involved in marketing research, but it is scattered on the whole. In view of this, this paper focuses on summarizing the impact of loneliness on individual consumption behavior and decision-making by combing the previous literature on loneliness, aiming to provide a more comprehensive theoretical framework for the follow-up research on loneliness and consumption behavior, and provide a certain theoretical basis and reference for enterprise operation and strategic formulation.

This paper mainly adopts the method of bibliometrics. First, through subject retrieval of keywords related to loneliness, and statistics and analysis based on Web of Science and CNKI, it outlines the research related to loneliness as a whole, and summarizes the measurement and experimental paradigm of loneliness. Then, starting from the theme of loneliness and consumer decision-making, it screens out relevant research and specific theories closely related to the theme for in-depth analysis and systematic sorting, and summarizes the characteristics of consumption behavior of individuals with high loneliness, as well as the factors affecting the consumption behavior of lonely individuals. Last, it sorts out the enlightenment of loneliness on marketing practice involved in relevant research, and looks forward to future directions.

This paper has the following contributions: First, from the macro perspective, it clarifies the concept and classification of loneliness, reviews the trend of research on loneliness, distinguishes the relationship and difference between loneliness and similar concepts, and summarizes the measurement and manipulation methods of loneliness. Second, from the micro perspective of loneliness and consumer decision-making, it analyzes the characteristics of consumer behavior of individuals with high loneliness from the three dimensions of ambivalence psychology, compensatory psychology and cognitive differences brought by loneliness to consumers, and finds out the factors that affect consumer behavior of high loneliness from the two dimensions of external environment and internal individuals, providing a more comprehensive theoretical framework for subsequent research on loneliness and consumer behavior. Third, it starts from the two perspectives of marketing practice and theoretical value, summarizes the enlightenment of loneliness research on marketing practice from the perspectives of product, pricing, promotion and channel in turn, and also looks forward to the possible directions of loneliness and consumption decision-making.