Scarcity, sex, and spending: Recession cues increase women's desire for men owning luxury products and men's desire to buy them

Guided by insights from evolutionary models of women's mate preferences, we hypothesized resource scarcity cues will increase women's desire for men owning luxury products and men's desire to purchase them. We tested this hypothesis across three studies, using recession (versus contro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business research 2020-11, Vol.120, p.561-568
Main Authors: Bradshaw, Hannah K., Rodeheffer, Christopher D., Hill, Sarah E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Consumer behavior
Evolution
Luxury brands
Mate attraction
Recessions
Scarcity
Sex differences
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Summary:Guided by insights from evolutionary models of women's mate preferences, we hypothesized resource scarcity cues will increase women's desire for men owning luxury products and men's desire to purchase them. We tested this hypothesis across three studies, using recession (versus control) cues to manipulate resource scarcity. The first study revealed that, after being primed with recession (versus control) cues, women (but not men) rated opposite-sex targets owning luxury brands as more attractive. The second study found recession cues increase men's, but not women's, desire for luxury, compared to budget, brand products. Finally, the third study demonstrated desire for luxury products under conditions of resource scarcity is driven by men highly motivated to attract short-term, sexual relationships. By showing how recessions influence women's mating psychology and men's consumer preferences, the current research provides a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between resource availability, mating psychology, and the consumption of luxury brands.
ISSN:0148-2963
1873-7978
DOI:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.021