它在对我笑吗？动机和情绪双视角下的品牌拟人化、拟人方向及其效应研究

Human often treats inanimate objects in the humanlike fashion unconsciously in their daily lives. Similarly, it is universal that products and brands are always endowed with human-like traits, characteristics, intention or emotion in consumption context, which is called product/brand anthropomorphism. Although a growing body of literature has paid attention to anthropomorphized brand, much of the extant research in this domain adopts the cognitive perspective to examine the impact of anthropomorphism (i.e., anthropomorphism vs. non-anthropomorphism) on consumers’ perception. In contrast to the cognitive perspective, the current project explores consumers’ tendencies to anthropomorphize product/brand with two accounts of both motivation (i.e., effectance motive and sociality motive) and emotion (in certain or uncertain condition). Integrating these accounts, we consider and test the effects in specific social contexts in China (i.e., the urban-rural difference). Moreover, this project enables us to demonstrate the distinct directions (warmth vs. competence) and antecedents (e.g., attachment style, power distance belief, mating goal etc.) as well. Finally, these accounts carry profound insights for both positive (e.g., the interaction of human and machine) and negative (i.e., exerting an negative impact on consumers’ perception) influences of product/brand anthropomorphism in marketing practice, as well as for consumers’ well-being. To our knowledge, such the motivational and emotional view of anthropomorphism has not been demonstrated before. The present project takes an alternate theoretical approach in order to enhance our understanding of the multiple ways in which anthropomorphism can affect brand perceptions, the consequences thereof and consumers’ well-being, in contrast to the prior perspective of cognition. As discussed later, this approach advances knowledge by showing a variety of novel implications such as how the market segmentation and specific brand positioning strategies might resonate and how to facilitate precision marketing practice of product/brand anthropomorphism.

对非人的物体进行拟人化是人类天生的倾向，反映在消费领域就是市场上无处不在的产品拟人化现象。近年来，拟人化营销获得学者关注，但现有研究更多是基于认知视角探讨有无拟人化对企业的影响。在此基础上，本项目从动机（社交和效能动机）和情绪（确定性 vs. 不确定性情绪）双视角探讨消费者的拟人化加工倾向，并强调其中的中国情境（城乡二元市场、独生子女现象和辩证主义思维）；进一步，本项目还研究产品拟人化的具体方向（温暖 vs. 能力）及其影响因素（如依恋类型、求偶动机等）；最后，我们探讨了产品拟人化对企业的正面影响（如在人机互动领域）和负面影响（哪些情境下消费者会对拟人化产品持负面态度），以及对消费者幸福感的影响。本项目在理论上突破现有认知视角下拟人化有无对比的研究局限，从动机和情绪视角系统探讨拟人化角色及其影响（包括对消费者幸福感），在实践上有助于企业在诸如市场细分和品牌定位等上实施更精准的拟人化营销。

随着人工智能时代的来临，产品与品牌越来越具有类人的特征，因此在此情境下研究消费者如何将产品与品牌拟人化，以及如何拟人化，品牌拟人化后的结果会如何等问题展开探讨就显得尤为重要。针对品牌拟人化的核心议题，本课题的主要研究内容是消费者是如何感知产品或者品牌变为拟人化，消费者如何与拟人化的品牌互动。重要的结果发现包括：（1）消费者是偏好能力型的拟人化还是温情型的拟人化，取决于消费者的归属需要。在高归属需要时，消费者偏好温情型的拟人化品牌；在低归属需要时，消费者偏好能力型的拟人化品牌。（2）当产品拥有拟人化特征后，消费者对其道德属性就变得更为重视。包括当产品拥有优秀的“道德属性”表现时，消费者会对拟人化产品（vs. 非拟人化产品）评价更高；当产品的“道德”表现较差时，消费者会对拟人化产品（vs. 非拟人化产品）评价更低。（3）研究还发现消费者的权力感知会影响消费者对拟人化产品的偏好，以及不同拟人化角色的偏好。具体而言，相对于高权力者而言，低权力者不喜欢拟人化的产品；而且低权力者也不喜欢那些采用领导者角色的品牌。此外，本课题还针对自然灾害拟人化，人与人工智能互动结果等议题开展研究，目前这两个方向的研究正在进行中。整体而言，本课题在人工智能时代来临，从拟人化角度切入研究人与产品/品牌的互动关系，为品牌关系研究提供了理论启示，特别是启示我们：在未来的人工智能时代，人与机器的互动会走向何方？在实践层面，目前的一些结论也为企业如何更好的利用拟人化策略提供了实践启示。