Influence of awareness of age-related change and stereotype threat on consumers' consumption- coping behaviors

Abstract

Most advanced industrial countries are currently going through the aging phenomenon and aging is one of the key future challenges of global life. As more and more apparent that the demographic changes make formal and/or informal care as an increasingly important issue, technology can play a role to make older adults in staying independent, active and healthy. This dissertation identifies a mechanism of aging consumers' societal or personal concerns in adopting innovative products. As an explorative study, qualitative study 1 induces the conceptual framework of aging consumer's general consumption-coping behavior toward the stress from physical, psychological, and social aging. Age stereotype threat, and anti-aging needs are found as central determinants of aging consumer's consumption-coping behavior. Based on this result, quantitative study 2 draws deductive research model of aging consumer's innovativeness. The result finds that awareness of age-related change plays as determinants of decreasing aging consumer's innovativeness. Furthermore, stress from stereotype threat is proved as a central factor of this stress-coping mechanism. This study shifts the narrative away from the notion that aging is a problem to be solved to an opportunity to build. The result of this study proves that subjective awareness of age-related change influences on innovativeness of individual, instead of chronological age. The diffusion of technology which is related with aging in place or quality of life technology have a bright prospect if marketing practitioners and academic researchers reflect aging consumer's anti-aging needs and negative age stereotype threat.