Effects of Awe on Consumers’Variety Seeking Behavior and the Psychological Mechanism

Abstract：“Awe” is defined as the feelings of wonder，admiration，confusion，and submission experienced when encountering vast，novel，and complex stimuli and situations that challenge consumers’worldview. Although awe is ubiquitous in consumers’life，there is limited empirical research on how awe influences consumers’variety seeking behavior，which is a pervasive and important variable. The current research adopts variety seeking as the focal subject and explores how awe influences consumers’variety seeking behavior. Results from two studies indicate that awe reduces consumers’variety seeking behavior and consumers’personal insecurity acts as the mediator. Further consumers’trait regulatory focus moderates the relationship between consumers’personal insecurity and consistency seeking behavior. Specifically，the experience of awe exerts influences on consumers’consistency seeking behavior through personal insecurity among trait promotion-focus rather than prevention-focus consumers. The conclusions of this paper，on one hand，expand the literature on awe，variety seeking，consumer’s personal insecurity，and regulatory focus theory；on the other hand，these results can help corporations understand consumers’choice of awe- inspiring products or under awe- inspiring circumstance better thus providing useful insight for marketers to design and distribute products accordingly.

Key words：awe；variety seeking behavior；personal insecurity；regulatory focus