A Study on the Impact of Social Crowding on Consumers' Compensatory Consumption Behavior
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62051/z4dh0t22Keywords:
Social crowding; Compensatory consumption behavior; Sense of control; Group relationship; Regulatory focus.Abstract
With the acceleration of global urbanization, social crowding has become a prevalent environmental phenomenon in consumers' daily lives, exerting a significant influence on their psychological states and consumption decisions. However, existing research rarely explores the intrinsic connection between social crowding and compensatory consumption behavior, and the underlying mechanism of this relationship remains unclear. This study systematically integrates theories including Compensatory Control Theory, Social Identity Theory, and Regulatory Focus Theory to construct a theoretical model. It examines the impact of social crowding on consumers' compensatory consumption behavior, verifies the mediating role of sense of control loss, and identifies the moderating effects of group relationship (in-group vs. out-group) and regulatory focus (promotion focus vs. prevention focus). This study enriches the research on social crowding in the marketing field and expands the application scenarios of compensatory consumption theory. It also provides practical insights for enterprises to optimize marketing strategies in crowded scenarios (such as shopping malls and promotional events) and for governments to mitigate the negative impacts of social crowding.
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