Exploring Mannequin Display Effect on Consumers'Purchase Intention: An Embodied Cognition Theory Perspective

摘要

People find mannequins in fashion apparel retail stores.Fashionable clothes are of ten displayed on mannequins installed either on a high pedestal or on a ground.Would this higher versus lower mannequin display influence consumers'purchase intention? If so,what would be the possible moderator and mediator to explain such phenomena? To answer this question,we focus on embodied cognition theory(Forster et al.2006;Friedman and Forster 2000),which explains that the extent of the movement of our bodies to perceive an object(e.g.,looking up and down)can evoke different ways of processing information.For example,while looking up stimulates people to adopt abstract information processing,looking down triggers people to adopt concrete information processing(Kerchhove et al.2015).Few studies have applied the theory to explain consumers'purchases in a storefront setting where mannequins are frequently used.The current study aims to empirically test how this view should be used in a real consumer setting.We hypothesize that combining consumers'shopping motivation(hedonic vs.utilitarian)with the height of mannequins affect consumers'processing information of the displayed products.Furthermore,the interplay between embodied cognition and shopping motivations will be mediated by mental simulation.