The effect of air pollution on consumer decision making: A review

Abstract

Rapid industrialization and urbanization trends have brought many challenges, one of the most acute of which is air pollution. Until recently, scholars have primarily focused on the toll that air pollution exacts through its health effects while ignoring air pollution's impact on consumer behavior. The scattered research in the recent year reveals that air pollution might influence consumers' decision-making process before, during, and after consumptions in both online and offline contexts. However, no research to our knowledge has reviewed the influence effect of air quality on consumer behaviors, which impedes the scholars and practitioners from acquiring knowledge from this emerging field. This informative review aims to collect and analyze the existing scattered research for air pollution effects on consumer decision-making behavior. This review illustrates that the impact of air pollution on consumer behavior is rather extensive, ranging from health risks to emotional changes, from changes in daily habits to individual and group consumption behaviors. We propose that future research can potentially explore the impact of air pollution on consumers' consumption experience and evaluation behavior and examine the differential impacts of air pollution on consumers' individual and group consumption decisions. • This article reviews the effect of air pollution on consumer decision making. • This article proposes the thematic structure of research on air pollution affecting consumer decision-making behavior. • The moderating effect of air pollution on consumers' decision-making behavior is reviewed. • The objectives, methods,control variables, and mechanisms on consumption decision-making studies are reviewed. • The future research directions of air pollution affecting consumer decision-making behavior have been prospected.