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Utilizing the theoretical foundation of the stimulus-organism-response framework, the present work developed and investigated a conceptual model. The work explores the effects of perceived risk of COVID-19 on tourists' choice hesitation and choice confidence. Furthermore, it examines the impacts of choice hesitation and choice confidence on psychological distress, which, in turn, influences purchase intentions and risk-protective behavior. Additionally, the study assesses the boundary effects of vulnerability on the association between choice hesitation, choice confidence, and psychological distress.

An online survey was administered in China during COVID-19 to assess the postulated hypotheses. We collected 491 responses using purposive sampling, and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was performed to investigate the relationships.

Results show that the perceived risk of COVID-19 positively influences the choice hesitation and negatively impact choice confidence. It was also found that choice hesitation and choice confidence positively developed psychological distress, which, in turn, negatively triggered purchase intentions and positively developed risk-protective behavior. Additionally, perceived vulnerability had a significant moderating impact on the proposed relationships, strengthening psychological distress.

In the current context, this study measures bipolar behavioral outcomes using the S-O-R model. Because cognitive processes influence participation in health preventative behavior during the spread of diseases, we highlighted how the perception of risk and vulnerability to a pandemic serves as a reliable indicator of certain behaviors. This study advances understanding of how the psychological mindset of tourists copes with such circumstances. Due to the pandemic, tourists face limitations in their choices and are placing greater emphasis on adopting protective measures to mitigate associated risks.

Prior research suggests that 80% of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events can be prevented by modifying certain behaviors, yet it remains the primary cause of mortality worldwide. Early detection and management of critical modifiable factors have the potential to improve cardiovascular care quality as well as the associated health outcomes. This study aims to assess the independent impact of psychological well-being in adolescence, a modifiable factor, on long-term CVD risk and promote targeted early interventions through quality management principles.

Data from the Add Health study, which employed a series of surveys and health tests (Wave 1 – Wave 4) on individuals for 14 years (from adolescence to adulthood), were obtained and analyzed longitudinally. Psychological well-being in adolescence was assessed using four Wave 1 survey questions, and 30-year CVD risk was estimated 14 years later with Wave 4 data. Three different logistic regression models were examined to understand the impact of adding covariates.

This study’s sample included 12,116 individuals who responded to all the relevant questions and underwent clinical risk factor measurements in Wave 1 (adolescence) and Wave 4 (young adulthood). Psychological well-being was protective with reduced risk for CVD across the three models tested. There is a statistically significant association, where increasing psychological well-being reduced the 30-year CVD risk exponentially in all the models. The analysis also suggested an exposure–response relationship, where the 30-year risk category of adulthood CVD decreased with an increase in psychological well-being.

This research uncovers an inverse association between adolescent psychological well-being and adulthood CVD risk. This study also identifies quality management-based preventive tools/techniques to improve psychological well-being in adolescence and therefore reduce CVD risk later in life.

This study is among the first to establish a long-term association between positive well-being and CVD risk. Also, unlike the existing literature, this work provides implications for improving CVD care from a quality management perspective.

This study aims to investigate the three-way interaction effect of sanitary risk, aesthetic risk and psychological risk on consumers' purchase intention for second-hand clothing (SHC) based on perceived risk theory.

A survey method is used to collect data from consumers, and the final valid sample comprises 290 respondents. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and PROCESS macro are used to analyse the data.

The results reveal that aesthetic risk moderates the negative influence of sanitary risk on purchase intention, such that the negative influence is stronger when aesthetic risk is high. In addition, the three-way interaction effect of sanitary risk, aesthetic risk and psychological risk on consumers' purchase intention for SHC is found to be significant. That is, the negative influence of sanitary risk on purchase intention is strongest when both aesthetic risk and psychological risk are high.

Previous studies have only examined the direct effect of perceived risk on consumers' purchase intention for SHC. This study contributes to perceived risk theory by examining the joint moderating effect of aesthetic risk and psychological risk on the relationship between sanitary risk and purchase intention in the context of SHC.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing measures and diffuse communication by media led to consumers’ uncontrolled product purchases worldwide. This phenomenon was described as a psychological effect experienced by fictitious scarcity, anxiety and herd mentality exacerbated by the media. This exploratory study aims to analyze the impact of risk communication on the perceived risk from the psychological dimension of consumer behavior amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

An exploratory study was conducted through an electronic survey one week after implementing social distancing measures in Puerto Rico. With a sample of 353 participants, the data analysis was carried out by PLS-SEM, partial least squares structural equations (PLS-MGA), multi group test (MGA) and hierarchical component models to answer the research hypotheses.

The results revealed that risk communication activates the perceived psychological risk during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the way in which the consumer faces the psychological risk is explained by the perceptions of scarcity and the bandwagon effect.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is a pioneer in presenting relationships between risk communication and perceived risk in consumer behavior, a topic that needs to be addressed in the academic literature. The research makes significant contributions to the study of consumer behavior by empirically validating the three phases of the Conchar model – risk framing, risk assessment and risk evaluation – where risk communication offers an excellent delineation to understand the consumer’s behavior during a pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the various perceived risk facets such as financial risk, performance risk, psychological risk, social risk, and physical risk influence the Indian consumers’ perceived overall risk during the purchase of green products such as energy-efficient LED light bulbs.

A self-administered questionnaire comprising a total of 29 items was employed over a sample of 272 respondents. The structural equation modeling using partial least squares was used for data analysis.

Psychological risk emerged as the most influential of the various risk facets in affecting perceived overall risk. Financial, physical, and performance risks emerged as the second, third, and fourth most influential risk facets, respectively, which affect the perceived overall risk. Surprisingly, social risk did not emerge as an influential facet when it comes to affecting perceived overall risk. Further, psychological and financial risks appeared to have a positive medium-level influence on the perceived overall risk, whereas physical and performance risks appeared to have a positive weak influence on the perceived overall risks. The influence of financial risk on the perceived overall risk was found to be partially mediated by performance risk.

The study is unique in the sense that it reflects the risk perception of potential consumers in one of the largest emerging markets of the world, when it comes to purchase of green products.

Craft beer (CB) has gained prominence in the on-premise trade in the USA, which has become the world’s largest market for CB. Academically based research in the hospitality domain examining consumer behavioral psychology-based constructs in the situational consumption context of restaurants has, however, not kept pace with market reality. This study aims to examine how product involvement, knowledge, opinion leadership-seeking, risk perception, information processing and their interactions affect consumption of CB by consumers in the situational context of restaurants in the USA.

A national sample of 697 consumers from across the USA covering all categories of restaurants, including bars, pubs and brewpubs, informs the development of a structural equation model (SEM) of the motivational process to examine these effects. In the process, the authors validate latent construct measurement scales specific to CB consumption in the restaurant environment.

The results support main hypotheses confirming the existence of distinct motivational relationships, thus explicating the processes by which consumers’ CB product involvement, product knowledge, opinion leadership-seeking and risk perception are activated, influence one another and their subsequent information processing-related outcomes. The findings also confirm the unstable nature of the situational involvement construct, the stability of enduring involvement and the pivotal role of psychological risk on opinion leadership and opinion seeking as well as on other antecedents. As far as the interaction effects between the constructs are concerned, the authors confirm five mediating effects and one moderating effect.

Strategies should be developed by hospitality managers to identify consumers with higher enduring involvement with CB. Strategies should also be implemented that mitigate psychological, social and functional risk. The insights into the motivational relationships pertaining to CB consumption in restaurants should be integrated into drinks menu design and be considered in how service staff are trained.

This research provides nuanced insights from a motivational perspective of consumers in the situational context of restaurants from a holistic and consumer-centric behavioral psychology perspective providing deepened insights of focal behavioral psychology constructs and their roles in the hospitality domain.

This chapter is building conceptual background of psychological risk for international tourists. Drawing on Place Attachment Theory, Moral Disengagement Theory, Followership Theory, Job Demands-Resources, Acculturation Theory and Goal Progress Theory of Rumination, this chapter proposes a framework of psychological risks with six psychological risks that tourists could encounter in foreign destination: destination detachment risk, moral disengagement risk, risk of false risk assessment, burnout risk, risk of loneliness and risk of rumination. High destination detachment could lead tourists to behave less environmentally friendly, while high moral disengagement could lead tourists to behave less ethically friendly. Followership to the influencers in social media could lead tourists to engage in risk-taking behaviours and false risk assessment, leading to burnout risk, risk of loneliness and risk of rumination, where negative autobiographical memory is created and forming memory-related distress when they arrive homes. Place detachment and moral disengagement risk local environmental and social health, while burnout, loneliness and rumination pose risks for the tourists' psychological health. Several studies propose suggestions for the destination manager and tourists to manage the risk effectively and adequately, including place attachment and moral engagement campaign, careful travel planning and social support.

This research examines whether anthropomorphizing artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots alters consumers' risk preferences toward financial investment options involving differential risks.

An experimental approach has been adopted with three studies, all featuring a between-subjects design.

Through three studies, the findings document that, in a financial decision-making context, anthropomorphizing AI leads to significantly greater risk aversion in investment decision-making (Study 1). This occurs because AI-enabled chatbot anthropomorphization activates greater psychological risk attachment, which enacts consumers to manifest stronger risk aversion tendency (Studies 2 and 3).

Anthropomorphizing AI has undeniable relevance in the contemporary marketing landscape, such as humanoid robotics and emotion AI algorithms. Despite of anthropomorphism's significance and relevance, the downstream impact of anthropomorphism remains unfortunately underexplored.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the influence of purchase intentions on repurchase decisions, and also to examine the moderating effects of reference groups and perceived risks.

The travelers on Taiwan tourist trains were surveyed. Convenience sampling was used to collect primary data. A total of 1,200 questionnaires were distributed and 1,155 effective samples were collected. The effective return rate was 96 percent. Regression analysis was used to test hypotheses.

The paper finds that; purchase intentions will have a positive effect on repurchase decisions: the higher the informational reference group influence, the greater the positively moderating effect between purchase intentions and repurchase decisions; the higher the value‐expressive reference group influence, the greater the positively moderating effect between purchase intentions and repurchase decisions; and the higher the psychological risk, the greater the negatively moderating effect between purchase intentions and repurchase decisions.

Limitations of the study are: the research targets the travelers on tourist trains. Consequently, it is less efficient in external validity due to the limited scope; the conceptual limitation needs to be elaborated more; and, since the research adopts the cross‐sectional research method without longitudinal section study it may be limited in the generalization. The moderating effects of reference groups and perceived risks have been examined on the inconsistency between purchase intentions and repurchase decisions in the study.

In tourism, reference group influence can provide the opportunity for individuals to communicate with group members in sharing the experiences of a destination and selection of a particular purchasing decision. The sole moderating effect of psychological risk has been verified among three dimensions. Therefore, the measurement and enhancement are critical for marketers to handle future business.

The extra value of the paper is to combine theory and practice together, and verify the moderating effects of reference groups and perceived risks between purchase intentions and repurchase decisions.

This study aims to investigate how customers’ perceived risks of sharing economy (SE) affect their self-protective behaviors when using SE, leading to their future behavioral intention. Additionally, this study looks into whether there are any differences between accommodation-sharing and ride-sharing customers in the aforementioned relationships.

An online survey targeting two groups of SE customers (i.e. accommodation sharing and ride sharing) was used. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, the mechanism of how SE customers’ perceived risks of SE affect their self-protective behaviors, which in turn influence their future behavior intention. A multigroup analysis was performed to assess the difference between the two groups of SE customers. Finally, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to see the potential differences between the five classifications of self-protective behaviors in their perceived risks.

SE customers’ psychological risks positively affected their hygiene protective behaviors and social protective behaviors, influencing their behavior intention and relative intention (compared with traditional services). Social risk had a negative impact on SE customers’ hygiene protective behaviors. There was a significant difference between accommodation sharing and ride sharing customers in their psychological mechanism of how perceived risks influence their self-protective behaviors.

The findings of this study help SE platforms and service providers better understand their customers’ perceived risks of their services and suggest them to promote their customers’ self-protective behaviors so that perceived risks can be mitigated, thereby generating strong behavior intentions. As the results indicated that there is a significant difference between the two major forms of SE (i.e. accommodation sharing and ride sharing) in their customers’ perceived risks and self-protective behavior, SE platforms can further refine their operational and marketing efforts based on the findings.

This study offers a comprehensive understanding of SE customers’ self-protective behaviors by examining the effects of SE customers’ different perceived risks on their self-protective behaviors during the unprecedented pandemic. Furthermore, the comparison of the two most popular forms of SE (i.e. accommodation sharing and ride sharing) provides new perspectives to understand customers’ behavior in the SE context.