ArticleBehavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland)2025
When Low Independence Fuels Luxury Consumption: Uniqueness as a Defense Mechanism During Collective Threats.
Article in Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Global crises, from pandemics to geopolitical instability, intensify societal anxiety. Paradoxically, these periods of collective threat often witness surges in luxury consumption. Drawing on Terror Management Theory (TMT), we propose this behavior is a psychological response to the deindividuating nature of such threats. We argue that a collective crisis increases intentions to purchase luxury goods via an intensified need for uniqueness, which functions as a self-affirming mechanism against a threatened sense of personal identity. We test this model using the COVID-19 pandemic as a salient operationalization of a collective threat. We further propose that this effect is counterintuitively moderated by independent self-construal. Findings from an experimental study (
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