Understanding Consumer Behavior in Digital Contexts

Dear Colleagues,

As digital technologies continue to evolve at an unprecedented pace, the ways in which consumers search for information, make decisions, and interact with brands have been fundamentally transformed. The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), social media platforms, mobile ecosystems, and immersive digital environments has reshaped the consumer journey, making it more dynamic, personalized, and interconnected than ever before (Audrezet et al., 2025; Pauketat & Anthis, 2022). While these advancements offer enhanced convenience and tailored experiences, they also introduce new complexities in understanding consumer behavior across increasingly fragmented and technology-mediated contexts.

Although prior research has extensively examined traditional consumer decision-making processes and digital marketing strategies (Lamberton & Stephen, 2016), there remains a critical need to deepen our understanding of how consumers think, feel, and behave in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape. In particular, emerging technologies are not only influencing what consumers choose but also how they form preferences, develop trust, manage privacy concerns, and engage with digital agents such as algorithms, virtual influencers, and AI-driven recommendation systems (Ryoo et al., 2024; Zhu et al., 2025). These shifts call for a more nuanced and integrative perspective that captures the psychological, social, and contextual dimensions of consumer behavior in the digital age.

This Special Issue of Behavioral Sciences invites contributions that explore the multifaceted nature of consumer behavior in digitally mediated environments. Our goal is to advance theoretical and empirical understanding of how consumers adapt to, interact with, and are influenced by digital technologies across various contexts. We welcome original research, theoretical developments, empirical investigations, methodological innovations, and interdisciplinary perspectives that aim to advance the understanding of consumer consumption behavior in the digital era.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Trust, transparency, and perceived fairness in digital platforms and automated systems;
• Consumer experiences in immersive environments such as the metaverse, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR);
• Consumer responses to personalization, recommendation systems, and targeted advertising;
• Privacy concerns, data disclosure, and digital self-presentation;
• The influence of social media, virtual influencers, and online communities on consumer attitudes and behavior;
• Cross-cultural differences in digital consumption and technology adoption;
• Ethical considerations and behavioral responses to digital manipulation, misinformation, and algorithmic bias.

We encourage submissions that provide both rigorous theoretical insights and meaningful practical implications, contributing to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior in the digital age.

References

Audrezet, A., Koles, B., Moulard, J. G., Ameen, N., & McKenna, B. (2025). Virtual influencers: Definition and future research directions. Journal of Business Research, 200, 115647.

Ryoo, Yuhosua & Jeon, Yongwoog & Kim, Woojin. (2024). The blame shift: Robot service failures hold service firms more accountable. Journal of Business Research. 171. 114360.

Zhu, Y., Liang, J., & Zhang, J. (2025). Doing bad when facing AI: the influence of interactions with AI or human agents on unethical consumer behaviour. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.

Pauketat, J.V., & Anthis, J.R. (2022). Predicting the moral consideration of artificial intelligences. Computers in Human Behavior, 136, 107372.

Lamberton, C., & Stephen, A. T. (2016). A thematic exploration of digital, social media, and mobile marketing research’s evolution from 2000 to 2015 and an agenda for future inquiry. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 146–172.

Dr. Taiyang Zhao
Dr. Liying Zhou
Dr. Sheng Wei
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• consumer behavior
• consumption patterns
• consumer experience
• consumer engagement
• consumer trust
• digital consumption
• artificial intelligence (AI)
• consumer decision-making
• algorithmic interactions
• data-driven personalization