心理距离对消费者决策模式的影响及作用机制

A better understanding of how decisions are actually made has the potential to inform behavioral decision research concerning how to eliminate biases and improve decision quality. Exactly how people reach their decisions has been a question that intrigues behavioral economists and psychologists for decades. Much of the attention received by behavioral decision research is a direct reflection of its ability to predict how people will make decisions that are inconsistent, inefficient, and depart from rationality. Although there are two approaches to studying decision making – the outcome-oriented approach and the process-oriented approach, much research on behavioral decision making has adopted the former approached and relatively less attention has been directed to examine the processes by which decisions are made. More recently work has suggested that people have multiple ways to reach their decisions, which involve qualitatively different processes. They have been classified into decision modes. Although these modes often operate in parallel, people tend to use them to different degree at different contexts. As such, the general question that this research project aims to address is that whether and how people flexibly employ different modes to make decisions under different circumstances. Specifically, in the current project, we’ll take multiple approaches examining the extent to which different modes is influenced by psychological distance. Understanding alternative decision modes to the standard cost-benefit-analysis approach forms a critical avenue for potential research.

了解人们如何灵活使用不同的决策模式对深入了解决策行为与规律非常重要。人们的各种判断和决策行为，一直是众多学者所关注的问题。但是大多数研究主要从决策结果的角度进行，从而忽略了决策过程。很少有研究考察人们如何采用不同的决策模式进行选择。研究决策者的选择如何偏离理性固然重要，然而进一步了解具体的决策过程更有助于揭示决策行为的规律，从而改变决策者的判断和选择。本项目将近几年来在不同领域受到广泛关注的心理距离引入到决策模式的研究中，考察人为操控心理距离对不同决策模式偏好的影响，并探索其内在的作用机制。此外，针对以往研究面对的测量技术困难问题，本研究将通过实验室模拟决策、过程追踪、发声思考等方式测量决策模式偏好，既是对决策测量的重要补充，也对提高研究的应用价值具有重要意义。这样的研究视角，不但拓展了现有心理距离对决策行为的研究，更丰富了消费者决策的理论与模型，对理论和实践都有着非常重要的意义。

从项目立项到2018年12月底，课题组按照计划有效地推动了本项目的研究工作。目前，已经完成了项目计划的各项目标。在本课题的资助下，取得的研究成果主要涉及四个方面：第一，研究了数字信息到类别边界的距离远近如何影响消费者基于想要（wanting）还是喜爱（liking）的决策模式选择；第二，研究了两种心理距离不同的人机交互方式（刮一刮 vs 摇一摇）对消费者选择使用虚拟优惠券的行为的影响；第三，研究了与心理距离相关的其他因素对创造性决策模式的影响；第四，研究了决策模式对心理距离的反向影响。不同于以往关注决策行为如何偏离理性的研究，本项目探索了消费者如何在不同情境下采用不同的决策模式，有助于更好地理解消费者的选择过程，从而为引导和塑造消费者的决策行为提供理论依据和实际建议。. 围绕数字信息、人机交互、决策模式等研究主题，项目负责人共有4篇标注本项目的研究成果发表（或接受待发表）在国际顶尖（Journal of Consumer Research）和一流市场营销学和心理学学术期刊上，还有2篇论文已被国际权威期刊（Journal of Consumer Psychology 1篇，Research Policy 1篇）有条件地接受。此外，研究成果多次在国内和国际重要学术会议上进行报告和交流。