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The current study investigated the relationship between nostalgia, conspicuous consumption, and impulse buying and compared gender differences in the effects of nostalgia on conspicuous consumption and impulse buying.

A total of 307 college students in western Singapore were recruited. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were conducted to assess the psychometric properties of the scales and estimate model path coefficients. A multi-group analysis was conducted to test if the path coefficients in the research model varied across genders.

This study found that nostalgia had a positive influence on consumers’ conspicuous consumption, which in turn had a positive impact on their impulse buying of sport products. The results of the multi-group analysis also revealed significant differences across gender groups in that the impacts of nostalgia on conspicuous consumption and impulse buying were stronger for male consumers.

This study forges new ground by investigating the intricate dynamics among nostalgia, conspicuous consumption, and impulse buying in the context of sport. By delving into the relationships between them and exploring gender disparities in their effects, this study enhances our understanding of the pivotal role nostalgia plays in shaping consumer behavior in sport. In addition, the identification of gender-specific patterns underscores the significance of tailored marketing approaches for effectively engaging both male and female consumers. Overall, this study presents fresh perspectives that can inform the development of targeted marketing strategies for sport marketers and retailers aiming to optimize their offerings and promotional endeavors.

Previous research on luxury consumption has focused on conspicuous consumption; however, research on consumers' self-conceptual mechanism in inconspicuous luxury consumption context is scarce. The present study aims to investigate various self-concepts and their mechanisms for inconspicuous and conspicuous luxury consumption.

An experiment with 215 participants from online survey website was conducted, and the hypotheses were tested using PROCESS Macro 3.4.

The study findings are as follows. Materialistic consumers' preference between inconspicuous and conspicuous luxury products is dependent on distinctive self-conceptual mechanism. More specifically, materialistic consumers with independent self-construal prefer inconspicuous luxury brands because of high need for uniqueness, whereas non-materialistic consumers with interdependent self-construal prefer conspicuous luxury products because of high self-monitoring.

The present study uniquely shows conditions (moderated mediation) that the link between need for uniqueness (self-monitoring) and luxury consumption is stronger for those with independent (interdependent) self-construal than for those with interdependent (independent) self-construal. The present results extend and help better understanding of mechanisms and conditions of conspicuous and inconspicuous luxury consumption.

Marketers are advised to design and produce unique vs popular luxury brands depending on consumer's motives and different self-concepts.

This research contributes to extant literature by distinguishing between conspicuous and inconspicuous luxury consumption with two different mechanisms (need for uniqueness and self-monitoring). The present study further demonstrates that the two mechanisms are strongly sustained differently depending on consumer's levels of self-construal.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of television viewing duration of a household on its annual category-level conspicuous consumption and also the enhanced level of this relationship for the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) households.

Hypotheses formulation was guided by cultivation theory and the concept of compensatory consumption. The hypotheses were later examined by using ordinary least square (OLS) regression on the data from the large nationally representative India Human Development Survey, 2011 (IHDS-II) database.

Television viewing duration of the household exerts a positive effect on its annual category-level conspicuous consumption expenditure. The nature of this relationship is enhanced for the BoP households. The annual category-level conspicuous consumption for the BoP households increases by close to four percent for every hour increase in their television viewing duration while such increase for other households is close to one and a half percent only.

Findings can be further strengthened by using time-lagged dependent variable taken at monthly intervals, as well as survey data linking household television viewing duration with desirability of conspicuous goods.

Managers can rely on television for reaching BoP consumers while being cognizant of the negative effects of promoting conspicuous consumption among them. They need to adopt a responsible marketing approach. Besides regulating television, policymakers need to work toward increased provisioning of educational and financial services for BoP households. They can leverage television for promoting beneficial behavior in BoP households.

The study empirically establishes the external validity of cultivation theory at the household level in an emerging economy by using a large nationally representative database. It also establishes the higher vulnerability of BoP households to increase category-level conspicuous consumption in response to television viewing. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to empirically examine the effect of television viewing duration of household on its annual category level conspicuous consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between conspicuous consumption and public self-consciousness, materialism and domain-specific self-esteem, demographics and shopping behaviour.

Focusing on clothing, public self-consciousness, materialism and domain-specific self-esteem are examined in relation to two characteristics of clothing: expensive and fashionable. Using a sample of 261 UK young professionals, the paper compares the five factors across three levels of clothing conspicuous consumption (low, medium and high).

Findings indicate that while the five factors were associated to different levels of conspicuous consumption, the relationship was not always evident. Expensive clothing was more related to conspicuousness than fashionable clothing and differences between low- and medium/high-conspicuousness individuals appear to be larger than the difference between medium and high-conspicuousness groups.

Price appears to be a more powerful influence on conspicuous consumption than the fashionable element and therefore a strategy focused on expensive prices is essential in attracting conspicuous consumers.

The study provides an insight into conspicuous consumption in the context of clothing and its relationship with public self-consciousness, materialism and self-esteem as they relate to the expensive and fashionable dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of conspicuous consumption on brand attitudes in the context of luxury brands market in China.

Two studies are conducted to test three hypotheses. In Study 1, the authors examine the mediating effect of self-brand association (SBA) on the relationship between social class and conspicuous consumption (H1 and H2); In Study 2, the authors examine the effect of observing others’ conspicuous consumption on the observer’s SBA (H3).

Results show that SBA negatively mediates the relationship between social class and conspicuous consumption. Moreover, the negative effect on SBA of observing conspicuous brand usage varies by social class.

The current study focused on the principal linkage between social class, SBA and conspicuousness, and future research could examine the influence of different personality traits on luxury consumption or the existence of sub-types or variants of conspicuous brand users.

The present study has important implications for luxury brand management, and provides rich insights to consumers’ motivations that lead to distinctive luxury consumption behaviors.

This paper sets out to address the issue of conspicuous consumption among middle age consumers (40‐60), focusing on the psychological and brand antecedents, using the context of automobile buying behaviour. Existing literature does not clearly conceptualise psychological and brand antecedent and their effect on conspicuous consumption due to usage of inconsistent measurement techniques and being largely targeted at the youth segment.

Two scales of measurement (psychological antecedent scale, brand antecedent scale) were employed to measure the impact. The study involved a quantitative research methodology employing a structured questionnaire and quota sampling with a total sample of 302 within the region of the South‐East of the UK.

The findings suggest that psychological and brand antecedents are of crucial importance among middle‐aged consumers in influencing their conspicuous consumption.

Using the examples of present communication strategies adopted by conspicuous product marketers, the paper argues how they are missing an opportunity and provides them with a novel way to market their brands, focusing on how consumers associate themselves with these brands.

The paper is the first of its kind to explicitly investigate the impact of brand and psychological antecedents among middle‐aged consumers – one of the most significant segments for conspicuous marketers, yet so far understudied.

The purpose of the present study is to examine and validate a research model encompassing power distance belief, need for uniqueness, self-monitoring, self-construal, social adjustive attitude, and value-expressive attitude as the causal antecedents for conspicuous luxury consumption.

Survey data was collected from a large consumer panel. The study applied a combinatory partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) approach in examining the research hypotheses and proposition.

The results indicated the effects of power distance belief, need for uniqueness, self-monitoring, and self-construal on social adjustive attitude and value-expressive attitude, which in turn determine conspicuous luxury consumption. In addition, the fsQCA findings revealed three configurations that articulate the complex interactions of the causal antecedents.

This study enriches the literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of the psychological motivation factors that drive conspicuous luxury consumption and assists luxury retailers in developing targeted strategies to appeal to consumers.

The primary objective of this study is to explore the nuanced interplay of conspicuous consumption, ethical label purchasing and the ensuing dynamics of civic virtue and cynicism within the luxury foodservice context.

Grounded in a theoretical understanding of solidarity within the context of product consumption, this research employs a two-pronged approach involving secondary data analysis and scenario-based experimental studies. The initial phase involves analyzing firm-level data from the Euromonitor database in 2019 and 2021. The main study employs a between-subjects experimental design with a cohort of 316 participants sourced from an online panel.

The results reveal a consistent pattern in the consumption of luxury foodservice and underscore a distinct upward trajectory in consumer demand for ethically labeled food. Notably, these findings underscore the moderating role of ethical label purchasing in the relationship between conspicuous consumption and consumers civic virtue. Additionally, ethical label purchasing moderates the impact of conspicuous consumption on consumer cynicism, both directly and indirectly through emotional solidarity related to both communal and equitable principles.

This study holds significance for both luxury food service researchers and market design practitioners. It provides valuable insights into how ethical labeling interacts with consumers conspicuous consumption, all facilitated by emotional solidarity.

Drawing on an evolutionary perspective, prior studies have revealed that conspicuous consumption by men has signaling functions (i.e. signaling the consumer’s positive mate qualities such as status and ability to acquire resources) for mate attraction. However, it is unclear whether conspicuous consumption of luxury products by women has a function in mate attraction. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of mate attraction goal on women’s interest in conspicuous consumption and the possible mediating effect of the attractiveness enhancement need in this effect.

A survey and two experimental studies were conducted in which 354 Chinese female undergraduates participated. In the survey, the respondents’ desire to have a romantic partner was measured; in the two experiments, the participants’ mate attraction goals were primed. The authors followed the literature to measure dependent variables (i.e. consumption measures), but the specific consumption items were adapted to meet the purpose of the current research. The authors analyzed the data from the three studies through analysis of variance, regression analysis and bootstrapping.

Young women with a strong (vs weak) desire for a romantic partner reported a high level of attractiveness enhancement needs, thereby indicating a higher willingness to pay (WTP ) for conspicuous items that can enhance their attractiveness (Studies 1 and 3). Furthermore, activating young women’s mate attraction goal can also increase their WTP for conspicuous items (Studies 2 and 3) and attractiveness enhancement items (Study 3) but not inconspicuous luxury product (e.g. underclothes) (Study 3). These findings suggested that young women consider conspicuous consumption of certain products as a means of enhancing attractiveness to acquire a desired mate.

This research identifies a novel function of conspicuous consumption: young women, especially those who do not have a romantic partner, may use conspicuous consumption of certain products to satisfy their attractiveness enhancement needs and, ultimately, to attract an ideal mate.

This study aims to examine how loneliness, romantic relationship status (single/non-single) and romantic attachment factors (sociosexual orientation index (SOI), satisfaction with current relationship) interactively affect conspicuous consumption.

Five quasi-experimental studies were conducted with different measures of conspicuous consumption across a variety of samples (N = 1189).

Study 1 shows that loneliness increased singles’ but not non-singles’ conspicuous consumption. Study 2A further shows the mediating role of the mating motive amongst singles. Study 2B compared conspicuous and inconspicuous consumption and showed no interaction effect between loneliness and romantic relationship status in the domain of inconspicuous consumption. Studies 3 and 4 tested whether the effects of loneliness on non-singles’ conspicuous consumption were moderated by SOI and satisfaction with current relationship, respectively. Specifically, lonely non-singles with high SOI or low satisfaction with current relationship sought conspicuous consumption, but those with low SOI or high satisfaction with the current relationship avoided conspicuous consumption.

This study did not specifically consider different roots of loneliness (lack of romantic love, friendship or family attachment) between singles and non-singles, which future research should explore.

The findings have implications for both marketers and policymakers regarding marketing campaigns for conspicuous products, support programmes satisfying the specific social attachment needs of different lonely people, etc.

This study identifies a specific social attachment desire of the lonely, namely, romantic motive, by which loneliness influences singles’ and non-singles’ conspicuous consumption in different ways. The findings suggest the value of distinguishing types of loneliness.