Low residential mobility and novelty-seeking consumption

Abstract

Cultural research using a socioecological perspective has shown that residential mobility fosters familiarity-seeking behavior. In particular, residentially mobile individuals tend to purchase from national chain stores, which offer the same products across different locations. Positing this process as a reaction to a rapidly changing high mobility environment, we investigated whether a low mobility environment—characterized by a more familiar, less stimulating environment—results in novelty-seeking consumptive behaviors. In testing our hypothesis, Study 1 used archival data to explore novelty-seeking consumption based on the sales of consumable brands in the United States, Japan, and Singapore. Study 2 primed participants with either a high or a low mobility mind-set to explore the effect of mobility on novelty-seeking consumption. The results supported our hypothesis that consumers in a relatively low mobility country (Japan) tend to purchase from newer and, thus, novel brands more than consumers in mobile countries (the United States or Singapore). Furthermore, compared with high mobility, priming participants with a low mobility mind-set led them to select novel over traditional products.