Introduction
The ongoing COVID‑19 pandemic has altered consumers’ purchasing behavior, driving the transition from shopping in physical stores to online shopping (e.g., Guthrie et al., Reference Guthrie, Fosso-Wamba and Arnaud2021; Kim, Reference Kim2020). While browsing in a physical store allows the customer to hold and touch the product, buying online does not, which is a concern raised by consumers when shopping online (Rathee & Rajain, Reference Rathee and Rajain2019). Companies have responded to these concerns by offering various methods for consumers to learn about their products without having to actually visit a store. For example, Macy’s, a department store chain in the U.S., offers a virtual reality (VR) experience in which customers can use a headset to clearly understand the size and color of the actual purchase and easily find the product they want (Macy’s, 2021). HaptX, a U.S.-based haptics company, has developed tactile gloves and suits that simulate touch (HaptX, 2021). Such tactile experiences in VR influence consumers’ product evaluation (e.g., vicarious haptic effect: Luangrath et al., Reference Luangrath, Peck, Hedgcock and Xu2021); however, even without special machines such as VR, merely imagining the use of a product might increase purchase motivation. In fact, Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013) found that by simply closing one’s eyes, touching a product imaginarily, and thinking about how it would feel increased physical control and psychological ownership of that product. Focusing on Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013), this study examined how haptic imagery by a simple method of imagining touching a product influenced consumers’ purchase intentions.
This study conceptually replicated and developed Peck et al.’s (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013) study in three ways. First, this study examined whether physical control and psychological ownership mediated the effect of haptic imagery on increasing purchase intention. Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013, study 3) showed that vivid haptic imagery increased physical control and psychological ownership, and this study examined the influence of this process on purchase intention. Since psychological ownership is associated with greater willingness to pay (Brasel & Gips, Reference Brasel and Gips2014) as well as purchase intention (Spears & Yazdanparast, Reference Spears and Yazdanparast2014), it would be reasonable that haptic imagery could influence purchase intention through physical control and psychological ownership. In fact, Iseki and Kitagami (Reference Iseki and Kitagami2016) showed that haptic imagery increased purchase intention by increasing physical control and psychological ownership. This study also examined whether the results could be replicated.
Second, this study examined the effects of closing one’s eyes and imagining touching (vs. not imagining). Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013) examined the effect of imagining with one’s eyes closed (vs. eyes open) through a laboratory experiment; however, in real-life online shopping situations, it is unlikely that people close their eyes when selecting a product. Based on its applicability in marketing, this study examined whether imagining touching, even without one’s eyes closed, increases purchase motivation via a physical control and psychological ownership compared to not imagining.
Third, this study examined the moderating effect of product involvement. According to previous studies (for a review, Jussila et al., Reference Jussila, Tarkiainen, Sarstedt and Hair2015; Peck & Luangrath, Reference Peck and Luangrath2022; Pierce et al., Reference Pierce, Kostova and Dirks2003), the degree that psychological ownership occurs depends on the target attributes. Jussila et al. (Reference Jussila, Tarkiainen, Sarstedt and Hair2015) stated, “Quite obviously, if the target is not attractive or does not capture the individual’s attention, psychological ownership for that target cannot develop” (p. 127). Similarly, Pierce et al. (Reference Pierce, Kostova and Dirks2003) stated that an association with the object is important for psychological ownership to occur. According to Peck and Luangrath (Reference Peck and Luangrath2022), one of the antecedents to psychological ownership is to have more information and knowledge about a target. These findings suggest that the degree of involvement with a product moderates the effect of haptic imagery on psychological ownership; however, this has not been empirically examined. Therefore, this study examined whether product involvement moderates the effect of haptic imagery on purchase intention through physical control and psychological ownership. Therefore, by conceptually replicating Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013) considering these three points, this study examined the psychological process by which haptic imagery influenced consumers in more detail.
Materials and methods
Participants
Overall, 303 Japanese undergraduates (186 men, 113 women, and 4 who did not specify their sex; M age = 20.40 years) participated. Subsequently, 300 participants were included in the analysis, excluding three international students.
Preliminary survey
Prior to the experiment, a preliminary survey was conducted with 16 Japanese undergraduates (10 males, 6 females; M age = 20.31 years) to select products with high and low involvement for Japanese university students. For the six products with relatively high tactile importance (ballpoint pen, sweatshirt, aroma hand cream, stick scissors, freestanding pen case, and tumbler) used in Iseki and Kitagami’s (Reference Iseki and Kitagami2017) study among Japanese university students, participants were asked to respond to five items about product involvement (e.g., “This is a product about which I would like to collect information”; α = .90) using a seven-point scale. Based on these results, the aroma hand cream, which had a relatively high-involvement score (M = 5.13, SD = 1.46), was selected as the high-involvement product; and the freestanding pen case, which had a relatively low-involvement score (M = 3.08, SD = 1.06), was chosen as the low-involvement product.
Measures
Participants were asked to respond to a two-item physical control (Peck et al., Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013; r = .82, p < .001; M = 3.46, SD = 1.69), three-item psychological ownership question (Pierce et al., Reference Pierce, Kostova and Dirks2001; α = .95, M = 2.35, SD = 1.46), and a two-item purchase intention question (r = .90, p < .001; M = 2.54, SD = 1.43; “I want to purchase the product” and “I want the product”) using a seven-point scale.
Procedure
The experiment was developed for this study and conducted online (see Supplementary Material for the questionnaire). Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: involvement (low vs. high) × imagery (no imagery vs. haptic imagery). In the haptic imagery condition, participants were asked to imagine how they would feel if they touched or held the product. Conversely, in the no-imagery condition, participants were asked to consider whether they would purchase the product. They were then instructed to look at a product image that matched the condition. Participants were then shown product images for 30 s and asked to respond to items on psychological ownership and purchase intention. Subsequently, a debriefing session was conducted.
Results
Mediation analysis
First, serial multiple mediation analysis (Hayes, Reference Hayes2022, PROCESS v4, Model 6) was conducted to examine whether haptic imagery influences purchase intention through the mediation of physical control and psychological ownership. The analysis was conducted with the haptic imagery condition (0 = no imagery, 1 = haptic imagery) as the independent variable, purchase intention as the dependent variable, and physical control and psychological ownership as the mediator variables. As shown in Figure 1, the indirect effect of haptic condition on purchase intention, mediated by physical control and psychological ownership, was significant (β = .14, SE = .05, 95% CI [.06, .24]). Therefore, the results of Peck et al.’s (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013) study were replicated and developed; similar results were presented by Iseki and Kitagami (Reference Iseki and Kitagami2016). Neither the indirect effect, in which the haptic condition affects purchase intention via physical control (β = .07, SE = .09, 95% CI [−.11, .26]), nor the indirect effect in which the haptic condition affects purchase intention via psychological ownership (β = − .04, SE = .06, 95% CI [−.15, .08]), were significant.
Figure 1. Results of the serial multiple mediation analysis. Values are standardized coefficients and 95% confidence intervals are provided in parentheses.
Moderated mediation analysis
Next, to examine whether product involvement moderates the effect of haptic imagery on purchase intention via physical control and psychological ownership, a moderated serial multiple mediation analysis (Hayes, Reference Hayes2022, PROCESS v4, Model 85) was conducted, in which the haptic imagery condition (0 = no imagery, 1 = haptic imagery) was the independent variable, purchase intention was the dependent variable, physical control and psychological ownership were the mediator variables, and the involvement condition (0 = low condition, 1 = high condition) was the moderator variable. The results showed no significant difference in the conditional indirect effects between the low (β = .15, SE = .05, 95% CI [.07, .26]) and high product involvement conditions (β = .13, SE = .05, 95% CI [.06, .23]; index = −.019, SE = .03, 95% CI [−.09, .04]), which means there was no moderating effect of product involvement (Figure 2). Thus, regardless of the degree of product involvement, haptic imagery mediated physical control and psychological ownership and influenced purchase intention.
Figure 2. Results of the moderated serial multiple mediation analysis. Values are standardized coefficients and 95% confidence intervals are provided in parentheses. Upper row: low-involvement condition; lower row: high-involvement condition.
Discussion
This study conceptually replicated the findings of Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013, study 3). Table 1 summarizes the differences between this study and that of Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013). The results showed that haptic imagery mediated physical control and psychological ownership, and increased purchase intention, replicating and extending the study by Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013). This result is consistent with that reported by Iseki and Kitagami (Reference Iseki and Kitagami2016).
Table 1. Summary of Peck et al. (Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013) and the current study
This study showed that imagining touching a product without closing one’s eyes increased purchase intention through physical control and psychological ownership compared to not imagining it. Academically, this finding further extends previous research on haptic imagery (e.g., Brasel & Gips, Reference Brasel and Gips2014; Iseki & Kitagami, Reference Iseki and Kitagami2016; Reference Iseki and Kitagami2017; Krishna & Schwarz, Reference Krishna and Schwarz2014; Peck et al., Reference Peck, Barger and Webb2013) or psychological ownership (e.g., Peck & Shu, Reference Peck and Shu2009; Pierce et al., Reference Pierce, Kostova and Dirks2003; Reb & Connolly, Reference Reb and Connolly2007; Shu & Peck, Reference Shu and Peck2011; Wolf et al., Reference Wolf, Arkes and Muhanna2008). From a practical perspective, this result might be useful for marketing strategies. While previous studies have suggested the importance of advertising messages and images in enhancing consumer’s mental simulation (e.g., Gavilan et al., Reference Gavilan, Avello and Abril2014; Lee & Choi, Reference Lee and Choi2022; Lv et al., Reference Lv, Li and Xia2020; Silva et al., Reference Silva, Rocha, De Cicco, Galhanone and Manzini Ferreira Mattos2020), the results suggest that even a simple message asking people to imagine touching or using the product might be effective for enhancing their purchase intention.
Limitations
In this study, the moderating role of the degree of product involvement was not found. However, the moderating effect of product involvement needs to be examined further. Although not significant (β = .53, SE = .32, 95% CI [−.10, 1.16], p = .10), the positive and negative coefficients of haptic imagery on psychological ownership differed between low (β = − .36, SE = .24, 95% CI [−.83, .12]) and high-involvement conditions (β = .18, SE = .24, 95% CI [−.30, .65]), suggesting the influence of product involvement on psychological ownership. One potential reason for the lack of the moderating effect could be that the selected products were not attractive to participants. In fact, in the experiment, participants’ purchase intention was low (M = 2.54 using a seven-point scale), which may have made it difficult to see the moderating effect of product involvement. In addition, since this study did not control for participants’ purchasing behavior prior to participating in the psychological experiment, the possibility that participants’ preexperimental purchasing experiences might have diminished the manipulation of involvement condition could not be denied. Owing to these limitations, further studies using different products and procedures are needed.
Open peer review
To view the open peer review materials for this article, please visit http://doi.org/10.1017/exp.2023.1.
Supplementary materials
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://doi.org/10.1017/exp.2023.1.
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Authorship contributions
The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication. The author read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding statement
The Nihon University College of Commerce Individual Research Allowance provided funding.
Conflict of interest
The author declares none.
Ethics standards
The Research Ethics Code of the Nihon University College of Commerce states that psychological experiments involving hypothetical situations do not require the consent of the Research Ethics Committee. All participants were presented with a written explanation of the survey, and only those participants who agreed to cooperate with the survey completed the survey.
Open access
Comments
Comments to the Author: This study specifically analyses the effect of haptic imagery on consumer purchase decisions which respects and enhances the online shopping experience, which contains useful and new information to justify publication. However, there are many mistakes in the paper, including data analysis, grammar, spelling, capitalization like although study uses moderation analyses but word mediation is used. The mistakes of data analysis may reflect that the authors are not serious and rigorous when writing this article. So, it will require substantial revisions.
The section of the literature review needs to be extended to include notable studies from the relevant area. Also, in this part, the author must express more reasons for motivation and innovation for doing this research.
The results of data analysis are not presented clearly, and there are some mistakes in data analysis. Results of moderation analysis are not