Romantic experience is a positive emotional experience that significantly impacts people's lives and consumption behaviors. However, the extant research merely conceptualizes romantic experiences as intimate relationships between lovers, which limits the research on how romantic experiences influence consumers' choices. This study extends the concept beyond romantic love by addressing generalized romantic experiences in a broader sense. Four experiments show that romantic experiences (vs. neutral experiences)increase consumers' preference for self-improvement featured products, even in areas not related to the initial romantic stimuli(Study 1). This greater inclination for self-improvement products ismediated by a heightened sense of meaning in life(Studies 2 and 3). Happiness orientation plays a moderating role in the influence of romantic experience on the meaning in life and preference for self-improvement products(Study 4). Theoretically, this paper expands the concept of romantic experience and enriches the research on the influence of romantic experience on consumer choice and the research on the emotional antecedents of self-improvement products. In practice, this paper provides suggestions and guidance for romantic marketing and the promotion of self-improvement products.

Ecological governance requires not only the joint efforts of the government and enterprises, but also the internal recognition and active participation of the public. It has attracted the attention of researchers that the emergence of online environmental gamification applications represented by“Ant Forest”which has made positive practical exploration to improve the publie's environmental literacy and to strengthen the consciousness of integration of knowledge and action. How to guide game users to change from online environmental protection game behavior to ofline pro-environmental behavior has become an important issue that needs to be further explored. Based on the theories of norm-activation and self-regulation, we construct a structure model to demonstrate the transformation mechanism from users' online game participation to ofline pro-environmental behavior and the moderating effect of hedonic experience. The research findings show that online environmental-protection games facilitate the transition from online to offline pro-environmental behaviors by initilly enhancing users' knowledge of environment(environmental threat perception), which subsequently activates their sense of moral responsibility(personal norms). However, hedonic experience weakens the positive effect of game participation on users' environmental threat perception and on the pro-environmental behavior. The research reveals and veriffies the potential negative effects of gamification on pro-environmental behavior, which provides a new theoretical research perspective for understanding and improving digital green behavior intervention, and offers useful practical enlightenment for enterprises to improve gamification platforms.

This research investigates the effect of social crowdingon shape preference and the underlying mechanism thereof. Across five experiments, the research demonstrates that individuals who are socially crowded prefer circular shapes to angular shapes. Such effect is driven by consumers' needs for vitality, specifically, social crowding increases the needs for vitality, which subsequently makes consumers prefer circular shapes as they are related to vitality in consumers' minds. We also examine the moderating role of composition of the crowd, namely the effect of social erowding on shape preference will attenuate for a crowd composed of in-group(vs. out-group)members. This research enriches the literature on social crowding and shape preference in consumption, and provides managerial implications forbrands and products.

In recent years, the application of AI-based robot services in the hotel industry has been on the rise, attracting widespread attention. However, existing research on how robot services affect consumer satisfaction has presented conflicting conclusions, and the academic community has not yet deeply explored the relationship between robot services in dfferent scenarios and consumer satisfaction from the perspective of asymmetrical impacts. This study mined consumer review data from China's first fully automated robot service hotel from 2018 to 2022, exploring the asymmetrical impact ofhotel robot services on consumer satisfaction in different scenarios based on the three-factor theory and complexity theory. Through dummy variable regression analysis, this paper identified that robot services in the hotel's alternative service scenarios are the basic factors for consumer satisfaction, those in the enhancement service scenarios are performance factors, while those in the innovative service scenariosare motivational factors. Moreover, using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis(fsQCA), this study fur- ther revealed the configurations of robot services in different scenarios leading to high(low)levels of eonsumer satisfaction, further validating the research results of the dummy variable regresion analysis. The study's conclusions enrich the literature on service scenarios and service satisfaction in the field of robot services and provide practical guidance for the hotel industry to reasonably allocate robot services to enhance consumer satisfaction

Cause-related marketing as a form of corporate social responsibility has grown exponentially in the last 40 years. Existing research on cause-related marketing has mainly focused onits effectiveness by exploring the components and advertising factors that influence consumers participation intention, with less attention paid to the donation feedback. The development of digital technology has enabled more and more companies to conduct donation feedback to consumers. Based on social dentity theory and elaboration likelihood model, this article explored the interaction effect of cause-related marketing feedback framing and self-construal, internal mechanism and boundary conditions. With two experimental studies, we found that individual feedback(aggregate feedback)could induce independent (interdependent)consumers more positive attitude toward company. This is because the matching between feedback framing and self-construal could induce higher consumer-company dentification. However, this matching effect was only supported for high cause involvement, but not for low cause involvement. By focusing for the first time on the cause-related marketing's donation feedback, this study develops new research perspective of cause-related marketing and enriches feedback framing's research context and theoretical connotation. This research also offers practical insights to managers on how to design and execute donation feedback communication for cause-related marketing campaign.

With the widespread adoption of social media platforms and the rise of independent media accounts, native advertising within social media holds significant commercial value for brand communication and targeted advertising. Inappropriate ad disclosures can trigger consumer concerns about deception and cognitive resistance, leading to negative brand atitudes. This study examines the impact of the recognizability of native ads and the type of publisher on consumer brand attitudes. Research conducted across three experiments demonstrates an interaction effect between ad recognizability and publisher type, with cognitive resistance mediating this interaction and the style of content information acting as a moderator. The findings of this study enrich the literature on native advertising disclosures and offer practical insights for businesses deploying native advertisements on social media platforms.

Corporate hypocrisy has become a typical corporate crisis event, but there is litle research on how enterprises should take measures to reduce the negative impact ofcorporate hypocrisy. Through three successive experimental studies, this paper answers the question of whether stealing thunder(that is, enterprises disclose crisis information themselves)can reduce the negative impact of corporate hypocrisy, and reveals the influence mechanism and possible boundary conditions. In the first study, it is found that stealing thunder can significantly reduce consumer boycotts caused by corporate hypocrisy, and the type of corporate hypocrisy plays a moderating role. Specifically, under a moral hypocrisy crisis, stealing thunder has no significant effect, while under a behavioral hypocrisy crisis, stealing thunder has a significant effect. In the second study, it is found that psychological contract violation plays a mediating role in the interactive impact process between stealing thunder and corporate hypocrisy type on consumer boycotts. In the third study, it is found that the CSR history of enterprises serves as a boundary condition for the interactive impact process between stealing thunder and corporate hypocrisy type on consumer boycotts. For enterprises with a long CSR history in a certain field, regardless of the type of corporate hypocrisy crisis they face in this field, stealing thunder has a significant effect. For enterprises with a short CSR history, stealing thunder will only play a role in a behavioral hypocrisy crisis. This paper deepens and expands research in the field of corporate hypocrisy, and enriches the scope and conditions for the application of stealing thunder. At the same time, it also provides important management enlightenment for enterprises to properly deal with a crisis of corporate hypocrisy and correctly fulfll their social responsibilities.

The globalization of time-honored brands is an important strategy to build a global brand and enhance China's cultural soft power. The unique cultural resources of time-honored brands are conductive to establishing differentiated market positioning and enhancing brand image in the international market. Based on the perspective of intercultural communication, this paper constructs a theoretical model of the globalization of time-honored brands that is evolving in stages. Thecase study based on Tongrentang shows that:(1)In different stages ofbrand globalization, implementing corresponding intercultural communication strategies based on brand cultural positioning is an effective path to gradually realize the globalization of time-honored brands. (2)According to different stages of brand globalization, time-honored brands should adjust the brand cultural positioning, which can be achieved by combining the target customer range, needs, and available cultural resources to upgrade the brand cultural positioning from the functional, experiential to meaningful. (3)The staged strategies for time-honored brands to implement intercultural communication include:amplifying the advantages ofproducts/services to gain brand product recognition in the building stage of brand globalization; bridging national and foreign cultures to establish brand likability in the expanding stage of brand globalization; extending the brand's additional social and cultural value for global consumers to achieve global brand cultural identity in the mature stage of brand globalization. Differentiated intercultural communication strategies at different stages are the key means to promote the phased upgrade of time-honored brands.