Cyber peers’ influence for adolescent consumer in decision-making styles and online purchasing behavior

Internet Development, Consumption Upgrading and Carbon Emissions-An Empirical Study from China

Internet development has changed Chinese people's consumption behavior, gradually expanding from survival consumption (SC) to development and enjoyment consumption (DEC) trends. Consumption is the new engine driving China's economic growth and the terminal of carbon emissions. Simultaneously, China is undergoing a profound change toward the "double carbon" goal, the space for carbon emission reduction in traditional fields is gradually compressed. Therefore, it is necessary to explore carbon emissions from the perspective of consumption terminals. Based on provincial panel data, we use the fixed effects model and mediating effects model to explore the relationship between Internet development, consumption upgrading, and carbon emissions in a unified research framework. The findings show that: (1) Internet development leads to an increase in carbon emissions. A finding remains significant after using instrumental variables to mitigate endogeneity; (2) Internet development promotes consumption upgrading, reflected in development and enjoyment consumption expenditure; (3) Internet development contributes to increasing carbon emissions through consumption upgrading. Heterogeneity analysis shows that Internet development in eastern China significantly contributes to carbon emissions through consumption upgrading, while it is insignificant in central and western regions. The Internet development leading region contributes to an increase in carbon emissions through consumption upgrading. In comparison, the lagging region is insignificant. This study can provide a reference for policymakers in China or other countries to formulate energy-saving and emission-reduction policies in the Internet industry and provide a scientific basis for advocating people's low-carbon consumption behavior and achieving carbon emission reduction at the consumption terminal.

Multiple psychological characteristics predict housing mortgage loan behavior: A holistic model based on machine learning

The factors that influence consumers' house choice are debatable. Previous studies have examined the effects of demographic and socioeconomic attributes, physical and environmental features of the house, and isolated single psychological characteristics on housing behavior. However, these factors are still not sufficient to predict consumer housing behavior, particularly when they are measured separately. We construct a holistic model that integrates psychological characteristics including values, personality traits, motivation, decision-making style, and risk-seeking together with demographic and socioeconomic factors to jointly predict housing mortgage loan behavior. This study aims to use a newly developed statistical method, "machine learning," to examine the relationship between multiple psychological characteristics and consumer housing mortgage loan behavior. Data were collected through an online survey (N = 2,270). The results show that the holistic psychological model is effective for predicting consumer housing mortgage loan behavior in the life context. Moreover, by analyzing and comparing the relative impact of all predictors, we find that psychological characteristics made a more important contribution to predicting housing mortgage loan behavior than did traditional factors (demographic and socioeconomic factors). The results provide a new perspective for understanding the effects of how multiple psychological characteristics integrally predict consumers' housing mortgage loan behavior in the real estate market. Theoretical and practical implications for marketing and sales are discussed.

Exploring the extent of digital food and beverage related content associated with a family-friendly event: a case study

Background

Exposure to unhealthy food and beverage content is a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic. Youth are susceptible to unhealthy digital food marketing including content shared by their peers, which can be as influential as commercial marketing. Current Canadian regulations do not consider the threat digital food marketing poses to health. No research to date has examined the prevalence of food related posts on social media surrounding family-friendly events. The aim of this study was to explore the frequency of food related content (including food marketing) and the marketing techniques employed in social media posts related to a family-friendly event in Canada.

Methods

In this case study, a content analysis of social media posts related to a family-friendly event on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram was conducted between January to February 2019. Each post containing food related content was identified and categorized by source and food category using a coding manual. Marketing techniques found in each food related post were also assessed.

Results

A total of 732 food and beverage related posts were assessed. These posts were most commonly promoted through Instagram (n = 561, 76.6%) with significantly more individual users (61.5%; p < 0.05) generating food and beverage related content (n = 198, 27%) than other post sources. The top most featured food category was fast food (n = 328, 44.8%) followed by dine-in restaurants (n = 126, 17.2%). The most frequently observed marketing techniques included predominantly featuring a child in the post (n = 124, 16.9%; p < 0.0001), followed by products intended for children (n = 118, 16.1%; p < 0.05), and the presence of family (n = 57, 7.8%; p < 0.0001).

Conclusions

The present study highlights the proliferation of unhealthy food and beverage content by individuals at a family-friendly event as well as the presence of food marketing. Due to the unfettered advertising found in digital spaces, and that they are largely unregulated, it is important for future policies looking to combat childhood obesity to consider incorporating social media into their regulations to safeguard family-friendly events. General awareness on the implications of peer to peer sharing of unhealthy food and beverage posts should also be considered.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-10716-w.

Understanding the Extent of Adolescents' Willingness to Engage With Food and Beverage Companies' Instagram Accounts: Experimental Survey Study

Background

Social media platforms have created a new advertising frontier, yet little is known about the extent to which this interactive form of advertising shapes adolescents’ online relationships with unhealthy food brands.

Objective

We aimed to understand the extent to which adolescents’ preferences for Instagram food ads are shaped by the presence of comments and varying numbers of “likes.” We hypothesized that adolescents would show the highest preferences for ads with more “likes” and comments. We predicted that these differences would be greater among adolescents who were “heavy social media users” (ie, >3 hours daily) vs “light social media users” (ie, <3 hours daily).

Methods

We recruited Black and non-Latinx White adolescents (aged 13-17 years; N=832) from Dynata, a firm that maintains online participant panels. Participants completed an online survey in which they were randomized to view and rate Instagram food ads that either did or did not show comments. Within each condition, adolescents were randomized to view 4 images that had high (>10,000), medium (1000-10,000), or low (<100) numbers of “likes.” Adolescents reported ad preferences and willingness to engage with the brand.

Results

Adolescents rated ads with medium or high numbers of “likes” higher than ads with few “likes” (P=.001 and P=.002, respectively). Heavy social media users (>3 hours/day) were 6.366 times more willing to comment on ads compared to light users (P<.001).

Conclusions

Adolescents interact with brands in ways that mimic interactions with friends on social media, which is concerning when brands promote unhealthy products. Adolescents also preferred ads with many “likes,” demonstrating the power of social norms in shaping behavior. As proposed in 2019, the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act should expand online advertising restrictions to include adolescents aged 12 to 16 years.

Preadolescents' healthy eating behavior: peeping through the social norms approach

BACKGROUND

The rising childhood obesity rate is a major public health challenge. The objective of this study is to examine key underlying mechanisms for peer-related social influence on preadolescents' healthy eating behavior by including factors closely linked with the quality of preadolescents' relationship with peers.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted in a convenience sample of 278 Lithuanian preadolescents, recruited from a public school. A questionnaire containing sociodemographic questions, questions about food intake, peer-related social norms of healthy eating, social self-efficacy, vegetable preference, need for peer approval and feeling of belonging were applied. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling.

RESULTS

The results of the SEM showed that social self-efficacy predicts feeling of belonging to the peer group and need for peer approval. Feeling of belonging and need for peer approval predict actual intake of vegetables via injunctive norms of healthy eating. However, neither feeling of belonging nor need for peer approval predicted descriptive norms of healthy eating. Contrary to our expectations, descriptive norms were found to be unrelated with actual intake of vegetables, though vegetable preference predicted actual intake of vegetables. Vegetable preference was not predicted by injunctive or descriptive peers' social norms of healthy eating.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study offer insight for informing parents, teachers and for social norms marketing interventions by stressing the importance of social relations when the aim is to encourage healthy eating among preadolescents.

Opinion Dynamics in the Presence of Increasing Agreement Pressure

In this paper, we study a model of agent consensus in a social network in the presence increasing interagent influence, i.e., increasing peer pressure. Each agent in the social network has a distinct social stress function given by a weighted sum of internal and external behavioral pressures. We assume a weighted average update rule consistent with the classic DeGroot model and prove conditions under which a connected group of agents converge to a fixed opinion distribution, and under which conditions the group reaches consensus. We show that the update rule converges to gradient descent and explain its transient and asymptotic convergence properties. Through simulation, we study the rate of convergence on a scale-free network.

Shopping in Cyberspace

Researchers have explored adolescents' online buying habits as the internet has developed and teenagers' incomes have increased. In this study, that tries to understand adolescent buying behavior, and adolescent decision-making styles as input variable and online shopping behavior as output variable. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is included as a moderating variable. A total of 1,614 adolescents aged 16 to 30 in Taiwan were participants. Correlation, regression, and covariance analyses were used. Results show a positive correlation between adolescents' consumer decision-making styles and purchasing behavior (including planned and unplanned purchases). In addition, compulsive purchases under unplanned purchases showed a positive moderating effect. Recognition of ease of use in TAM had a positive moderating effect on compulsive purchases categorized under unplanned purchases. This research examined the moderating effect of variables in TAM, verifying their effects.