The Forest or the Tree? A Review on Mindsets and Consumer Decisions

Liu Xiaoping; Mao Lijing; Deng Wenxiang

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2018.08.007

Summary

Although existing research has entered the study of consumer behavior decision-making issues from the perspective of mindsets, there are still many aspects that deserve further discussions. Based on the analysis of the origins and concepts of mindsets, this paper first explores the measurement and experiment initiation paradigm, the influence factors of mindsets, and the effects of mindsets on consumer decision-making. Then, it builds an integrated model by summarizing the existing literature. Finally, the development direction of future research has been obtained as follows.　　The concept of mindsets first came from Navon’s letter discrimination experiment. There is a large difference in the level of representation of the same object among individuals. Some narrow objects to pay attention to their global graphics, and some enlarge objects to focus on their details. The mindset is a filter for individuals to process information from a big database, and has a strong influence on individual social cognitions and behaviors. Scholars have different definitions of mindsets such as levels and probabilities of results, traits, and situational attributions, etc. It is not difficult to find that the nature of the individual’s representation of information, events, and behaviors is the same. That is, consumers are expected to use global or local mindset when making judgments. There are significant differences between global and local mindsets, which are manifested in many aspects such as things representation, information perception, and goal realization process.　　Individual mindsets have special characteristics and are related to people’s long-term lifestyle habits. It can be measured by using the BIF （Behavior Identification Form） scale and can be manipulated experimentally. The experimental starting paradigm of the individual mindset includes two major directions. One is direct manipulation of psychological distances; the other is indirect manipulation of using situations. Direct manipulation refers to the manipulation of psychological distances while indirect manipulation refers to the method of manipulating individual thinking tendencies by presenting events associated with mindsets, including image launches, text launches, and marketing scenarios start, etc.　　Consumers’ global and local mindsets are different ways for consumers to process information. It affects consumers’ social cognitions and behaviors. On the one hand, mindsets will affect consumer decisions, such as product association, consumer evaluation and consumer choices, etc. On the other hand, mindsets work through marketing situations. Specific marketing scenarios will encourage consumers to adopt different mindsets. Therefore, merchants will use different marketing scenarios to manipulate consumer mindsets and thus influence consumer behavior decision-making. The marketing scenarios can be divided into product interpretation levels and information presentation ways.　　This paper organizes the global and local mindset integration model on the basis of existing theoretical and empirical research, then divides it into formation mechanisms and influence results. Finally, the paper points out future research directions, including integration models, measurement methods and practical applications. This paper also provides a reference for the theoretical research on mindsets and promotes the application of mindsets in the marketing field.