Abstract
Access-based services allow financially-constrained individuals to consume a variety of goods and services without the cost of sole ownership. But might there be dangers in communicating about access-based consumption in terms of its affordability, particularly among this segment of consumers? To answer this question, we investigate the effects of framing access-based consumption in terms of two primary benefits: affordability and variety. Results from four studies suggest that although affordability might rationally be of most interest to financially-constrained individuals, framing access-based consumption’s benefits in terms of affordability undermines the happiness they may extract from their consumption relative to framing in terms of variety. This difference emerges because communications focused on affordability re-affirm the negative self-identity financially-constrained individuals perceive as a result of their financial situation. Given these findings, we make clear recommendations for communications related to the access-based economy and this vulnerable set of people.
Highlights
Many people feel financially constrained, a psychological state that occurs when one’s limited discretionary income fails to match one’s desires (Tully et al, 2015)
In the context of access-based consumption, happiness depended both on their financial constraints and the framing of the access-based opportunity
Since Study 3 was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, it tests whether our proposed effects hold with the impact of the pandemic (Hossain, 2021)
Summary
Many people feel financially constrained, a psychological state that occurs when one’s limited discretionary income fails to match one’s desires (Tully et al, 2015). Such a situation often jeopardizes consumers’ happiness, which in turn can undermine their ability to find success in marriage, friendship, work performance, and health (Lyubomirsky et al, 2005; Hamilton et al, 2019; Hill and Sharma, 2020; Wang et al, 2020). Besides resource affordability, research has highlighted that access-based consumption offers another important benefit: access to resource variety (Lawson et al, 2016; Jiang and Tian, 2018).
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