The Effect of Loneliness on Experiential Consumption Preference

（Business School of Jilin University，Changchun 130012，Jilin，China）

Abstract：With economic development and social progress，the form of experiential consumption has become more and more abundant，and it has gradually occupied an important position in the consumer market.However，current researches mostly focus on the outcome variables of experiential consumption，and lack the exploration of consumer psychology. With the help of 1014 valid sample data collected from online questionary，using hierarchical regression analysis and Bootstrap method，the authors carry out an empirical study on the relation between loneliness and experiential consumptionpreference，and explorethe role of social needs and self-construction. It is found that：first，loneliness has positive effect on experiential consumption，i.e. with stronger individual perceived loneliness，customers will have stronger experiential consumption preference to get rid of loneliness and related negative emotional effect；second，social needs play a mediating role in the influence of loneliness on individual experiential consumption preference，i.e. loneliness will stimulate individual to generate social needs，which will in turn improve individual’s experiential consumption preference；and third，self-construction adjusts the moderating role of social needs，and comparing to independent self- construction individuals，loneliness has greater impact on social needs of dependent self- construction individuals，who has greater experiential consumption preference. So，to further promote the development of experiential consumptionindustry，the enterprises should positively pay more attention to consumers’psychological factors such as loneliness，formulate related marketing strategy according to consumers’psychological and individual characteristics to meet their social needs and relieve their loneliness；the merchants should positively deliver the social value of experiential products to targeted consumers，stimulate their dependent self-construction，and meet their emotional demands；and the government should pay more attention to citizens’psychological situation，positively guide their experiential consumption，and strengthen works concerning social members’psychological health.

Key words：loneliness；experiential consumption preference；social needs；independent self-construction；dependent selfconstruction