Calendar of events
Department Psychology Seminars: Tom White, PGR Student, University of Warwick
Title: Individual’s Representations of Hedonic and Utilitarian Domains of Consumer Products
Abstract: Consumption behaviour is categorised in many ways, with the most well-established means of differentiation being the dual concepts of hedonic and utilitarian consumption. Hedonic products are designed to bring the consumer enjoyment and pleasure, while utilitarian products are typically purchased to fulfil a specific need or purpose. Whilst the consumer psychology literature is comprehensive regarding predicting hedonic and utilitarian choices, understanding how products are perceived and conceptualised is less well researched, and how these perceptions may differ based on individual differences, even less so.
Our previous studies consistently show that individuals who value shopping for and acquiring consumer products, evaluate hedonic products (e.g., action figures) as less hedonic, and more utilitarian. Further, they rate utilitarian products (e.g., USB drives) as more hedonic and less utilitarian than people who do not care about shopping. These findings suggest that these people derive value from both the hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of consumption more so than people who care little for shopping and material possessions, potentially blurring the lines between these recognised dimensions. To investigate our findings and theory further, we implemented a novel approach to investigate how individuals conceptualise the hedonic, and utilitarian dimensions of consumer products, and how these conceptualisations may vary as a function the propensity to shop for and acquire consumer products.
As an alternative to classic, but time-consuming pairwise similarity judgements, we implemented the Qualtrics Spatial Arrangement Method (Q- SpAM) to collect participants’ visuospatial data regarding perceived similarity between 32 consumer products. Further, we investigated how spatial arrangements (and by association dimensional conceptualisations) differed between groups, based on our individual difference measures, including cognitive styles. Our previous findings, the present study’s methodological approach, and results that support our hypotheses will be summarised during this talk, providing further insight into the ways that consumers perceive and conceptualise common consumer products.