Search Results (81)

Internet rumor refutation represents a critical issue in the current governance of the Internet information environment. Different from the mainstream research that focuses on refutation subjects, methods, and information presentation formats, this study adopts a psychological perspective at the individual level to examine how a typical environmental factor—social crowding (the subjective psychological experience arising when spatial demand exceeds supply due to high population density per unit area) affects individuals’ willingness to refute rumors, as well as the mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions of this effect. The findings provide implications for motivating individual participation in Internet rumor refutation. Considering rumor refutation as a prosocial behavior, this study integrates the moral judgment framework and focuses on the positive side of greater self-other overlap induced by social crowding. Through one questionnaire survey and two experimental studies, most of the hypotheses are supported. The results indicate that social crowding positively influences willingness to refute rumors, with impression management and social connectedness serving as parallel mediators in this relationship. Additionally, interdependent self-construal positively moderates the relationship between social crowding and social connectedness, whereas the moderating role of independent self-construal was not supported. This study expands online rumor-refutation research from the perspective of environmental antecedents, proposes an altruistic-egoistic dual-pathway model, and provides practical implications for governments and social media platforms in rumor governance. Full article

Prior research on tour guides’ influence on tourists’ pro-environmental behavior has largely emphasized informational content (e.g., interpretation) and communication tactics (e.g., humor), while leaving the social-influence role of guides’ emotional displays underexamined, especially with respect to simultaneous affective and cognitive mechanisms. Drawing on Emotions-as-Social-Information (EASI) theory, we develop a dual-path model in which tour guides’ environmental passion affects tourists’ pro-environmental behavior via an affective-reaction pathway (positive emotions) and an inferential pathway (self-protection motivation), with tourists’ self-construal moderating the first-stage effects. Using a seven-day experience sampling (intensive longitudinal) survey (873 day-level observations nested within 159 tourists) and estimating a 1-1-1 multilevel structural equation model with Monte Carlo confidence intervals, we find that guides’ environmental passion predicts tourists’ pro-environmental behavior both directly and indirectly through the two mediators, and these indirect effects are stronger among tourists with a more interdependent self-construal. The study extends EASI theory to guide–tourist interactions and advances tourism sustainability research by clarifying how emotional displays operate as social information in shaping tourists’ daily pro-environmental responses. Full article

As climate-driven disasters intensify globally, this study investigates how environmental volatility influences the pro-environmental initiatives of micro-entrepreneurs in Chile. While Chile possesses world-class seismic resilience, the 2020–2025 period marked a dramatic shift toward hydro-climatological extremes, including mega-fires and catastrophic flooding. Integrating construal level theory, protection motivation theory, and the concept of focusing events, this research examines the psychological and structural drivers of business adaptation. Results indicate that residing in disaster-prone regions is insufficient to trigger proactivity; instead, a stark distinction exists between abstract geographic proximity and the behavior triggered by personal exposure. Furthermore, mediation analysis provides mixed support for the role of business profit; while profit loss negatively mediated equipment efficiency and recycling, the magnitude was marginal. This coping gap suggests that resource-constrained actors favor low-cost survivalist tactics over systemic shifts due to depleted organizational slack. Ultimately, the study highlights that disasters are powerful but inefficient teachers; without addressing technical and financial barriers to mitigation, global supply chains remain fragile despite localized disaster experiences. Full article

Workplace involution has become a widespread and salient phenomenon among employees in contemporary Chinese organizations. However, little is known about how workplace involution influences employees’ cognition and behaviors. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model and Construal Level Theory (CLT), this study investigated the effect of workplace involution on employees’ proactive career behavior and examined the moderating role of construal level. Study 1 employed a survey design with 284 full-time employees using validated measures of workplace involution, proactive career behavior, and construal levels. Study 2 adopted a scenario-based experimental design that manipulated workplace involution and construal level. Results from both studies consistently revealed that (1) workplace involution had a significant negative effect on employees’ proactive career behavior, and (2) construal level positively moderated this relationship. Specifically, a high construal level buffered the detrimental impact of workplace involution on proactive career behavior. These findings highlight the inhibitory mechanism of workplace involution on employees’ positive career behaviors and elucidate the cognitive boundary conditions underlying this effect. These results have theoretical and practical implications for promoting career proactivity in highly competitive organizational environments. Full article

With the global environmental challenges and accelerating digitalization, promoting the continuous use of digital low-carbon applications (DLCAs) constitutes a critical pathway for China to achieve green transformation objectives. DLCAs represent innovative products and services that leverage digital technologies—through substitution, sharing, and intelligent control mechanisms—to deliver energy-saving and emission-reduction benefits to consumers. Drawing on construal level theory (CLT), this study investigates how reward strategies influence DLCA continuance intention. Findings from three experiments targeting Chinese consumers demonstrate that material rewards (compared to immaterial rewards) significantly increase DLCA continuance intention, with attitude serving as a mediating mechanism. Furthermore, reward timing (delayed vs. immediate) moderates this relationship: under delayed (vs. immediate) conditions, immaterial (vs. material) rewards generate a more favorable attitude, thereby strengthening continuance intention. Additionally, reward orientation (altruistic vs. self-oriented) serves as a boundary condition for the moderating effect of reward timing. Specifically, under a self-oriented framing, the construal fit between immaterial–delayed and material–immediate rewards proves most effective in fostering positive attitudes and continuance intention. Under altruistic framing, however, immaterial rewards consistently outperform material rewards in enhancing consumer attitudes and continuance intention. This research not only extends CLT within the domain of reward strategy design but also offers actionable insights for firms seeking to develop effective incentive mechanisms that promote sustained customer engagement. Full article

Maintaining sustainable mental health is an increasing societal challenge in Japan, where psychological distress and sleep problems have become major public health concerns. This study examined how three culturally grounded dimensions of self-construal—Subjective Self (SS), Objective Self (OS), and Autonomous Self (AS)—relate to both positive and negative indicators of psychological adjustment among Japanese adults. This study aimed to examine whether internally guided forms of self-regulation (SS and AS) function as psychological resources, whereas externally guided self-regulation (OS) operates as a potential vulnerability factor in a culturally tight social context. By simultaneously examining multiple indicators of adjustment, this research clarifies how culturally shared self-regulatory patterns are linked to distress and sleep difficulties that affect large segments of the population. From a public health perspective, the findings highlight socially reinforced risk and protective patterns that can inform population-level prevention and mental health promotion in settings such as schools, workplaces, and communities, rather than relying solely on individual clinical intervention. These results underscore the importance of integrating cultural psychology into public health frameworks aimed at promoting sustainable mental health in contemporary and increasingly diverse social environments. Full article

Advertising research highlights the crucial role of creative strategy in shaping consumer behavior. Yet, limited attention has been paid to how creative appeal and message strategy jointly influence persuasion in social media contexts. This study examines the interactive effects of informational versus transformational appeals and personal versus social-experience message strategies on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. A 2 (creative appeal) × 2 (message strategy) experimental design was implemented using Facebook post advertisements for a fictitious beer brand. Data was collected from 231 participants randomly assigned to one of four ad conditions. Results show that informational appeals outperform transformational appeals in generating immediate purchase intentions. Attitudes toward the ad and attitude toward the brand mediated these effects, consistent with the Dual Mediation Hypothesis. Moreover, in accordance with the Construal Level Theory, message strategy moderates the relationship: informational appeals were most effective when paired with personal strategies but lost persuasive power under social-experience strategies. These findings advance the theoretical understanding of digital advertising persuasion by explicating how creative appeal and message strategy jointly shape both attitudinal and behavioral responses. Practically, the results suggest that advertisers seeking short-term conversions should combine informational appeals with personal strategies. Full article

As AI chatbots are increasingly used in digital fundraising, it remains unclear which communication strategies are more effective in enhancing consumer trust and donation behavior. Drawing on construal level theory and adopting a human-AI interaction perspective, this research examines how message framing in AI-mediated persuasive communication shapes trust and donation willingness. Across four studies, we find that when AI chatbots employ high-level construal (abstract) message framing, consumers perceive the information as less credible compared to when the same message is delivered by a human agent. This reduced message credibility weakens trust in the charitable organization through a trust transfer mechanism, ultimately lowering donation intention. Conversely, low-level construal (concrete) framing enhances both trust and donation willingness. Moreover, the negative impact of abstract message framing by AI chatbots is significantly attenuated when the chatbot features anthropomorphic visual cues, which increase perceived credibility and restore trust and donation willingness. These findings reveal potential risks in deploying AI chatbots for interactive fundraising marketing and offer practical insights for nonprofit organizations seeking to leverage AI in donor engagement. Full article

Consumer digital hoarding is becoming increasingly common in agricultural live social e-commerce, where the abundance of product information, seasonal promotions, and origin-based narratives make consumers more inclined to accumulate digital content such as product links, coupons, and live-stream screenshots. This phenomenon not only affects consumers’ digital mental health, consumption behavior, and decision-making ability, but also poses challenges to agricultural merchants and platforms in terms of customer conversion, precision marketing, and supply chain management. Drawing on the SOR model and integrating construal level theory, this paper constructs a research framework to analyze the key factors influencing consumers’ willingness to digitally hoard in the context of agricultural live social e-commerce. Based on a questionnaire survey of 322 consumers, and using the Ordered Probit (O-Probit) model, the empirical results show that emotional interaction significantly influences digital hoarding intention through the chain mediating effects of emotional attachment and fear of missing out (FOMO). Furthermore, social distance and immersion serve as boundary conditions in this mechanism. Our findings not only deepen the understanding of consumer digital hoarding behavior in agricultural live e-commerce, but also provide new insights for agricultural merchants and platforms to better design interaction strategies, balance consumers’ digital accumulation with actual purchasing conversion, and enhance the efficiency of agricultural product marketing. Full article

Rolling element bearing failure in industrial robots can cause system downtime, high repair costs, and significant economic losses. Traditional fault diagnosis methods assume that training and testing data follow the same distribution, requiring extensive historical data, which is often impractical in dynamic operational environments. Digital twin and transfer learning technologies offer a new approach for intelligent fault diagnosis, addressing these limitations. This paper combines model knowledge and data-driven approaches using digital twin and transfer learning for bearing fault diagnosis. First, a dynamic twin model of the bearing is developed using MATLAB/Simulink (R2018a), simulating fault data under various operating conditions that are difficult to obtain in real-world scenarios. A multi-level construal neural network algorithm is then proposed to minimize cumulative errors in data preprocessing. The digital twin technology generates a balanced dataset for pre-training the model, which is subsequently applied to real-time fault diagnosis in industrial robot bearings via transfer learning, bridging the gap between virtual and physical entities. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the method, with a diagnostic accuracy of 96.95%, marking a 15% improvement over traditional convolutional neural network methods without digital twin enhancement. Full article

Food, specifically those with heritage attributes, stands as one of the distinctive forms of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). To promote and preserve such heritage, brands have increasingly focused on incorporating heritage elements into the packaging. This research employs three studies conducted in China to explore how different representation styles of heritage elements (verbal vs. non-verbal) shape consumer brand preferences in food packaging. Study 1 confirmed that food packaging featuring heritage elements effectively enhances consumer brand preference. Moreover, consumers exhibit stronger preference for the verbal elements over the non-verbal ones for heritage food due to construal level theory. Study 1 also demonstrated the mediating role of perceived value. Study 2 validated that such an effect remained significant within a tourism shopping context. In addition, Study 3 revealed the moderating effect of purchase motivation. When purchasing food as a gift, consumers tend to adopt a more abstract processing level (e.g., symbolic meaning, cultural connotation), which enhances the effect of verbal heritage elements on brand preference, whereas for self-use purchases, consumers shift to a concrete processing level (e.g., taste or price), thus enhancing the effect of non-verbal representation style. This research enriches the research on heritage element application in food marketing, and offers suggestions for packaging design for heritage food. Full article

This research addresses the ‘cultural blind spot’ in Big Data and AI, where algorithms treat global user-generated content monolithically, fostering biased marketing models. It proposes a dynamic ‘contextual value amplification’ framework, integrating Impression Management and Construal Level Theories. The study argues that service context—luxury versus budget—systematically reconfigures how cultural values are expressed in online customer reviews. A dual-method approach was applied to 284,746 negative hotel reviews. First, a high-dimensional fixed-effects model provided evidence for ‘cultural complaint signatures’ and revealed a novel mechanism: the luxury context amplifies individualists’ focus on relational Service but dampens their focus on transactional Value. Second, an XGBoost model offered computational validation. Including these theoretically derived features improved the model’s ability to classify a reviewer’s cultural orientation by over 220%. The study proposes a dynamic, context-contingent theory of cross-cultural expression, offers a methodological template fusing econometrics and machine learning to mitigate bias, and advances a conceptual framework for ‘Cultural Intelligence’. Full article

The development of generative AI has disrupted various fields, and the field of online healthcare is no exception. However, there is a lack of research on patients’ intention to adopt generative AI on online healthcare platforms. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the factors influencing patients’ intention to adopt generative AI. Employing a questionnaire-based survey, we explore the factors influencing patients’ intention to adopt generative AI through the UTAUT2 model, considering the moderating effects of construal level, health literacy, and AI literacy. We find that performance expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions are positively associated with patients’ intention. Surprisingly, effort expectancy and hedonic motivation do not have a significant impact on patients’ intention. Construal level positively moderates the relationship between performance expectancy and patients’ intention; health literacy negatively moderates the relationship between social influence and patients’ intention. AI literacy positively moderates the relationship between effort expectancy and patients’ intention but negatively moderates the relationship between social influence and patients’ intention. This study enriches UTAUT2 theory and provides practical insights for the development and promotion of generative AI on online healthcare platforms. Full article

Digital financial services have transformed consumer financial behavior, yet their effects on sustainable development outcomes remain poorly understood. This study examines how mobile financial services (MFS) usage influences financial behaviors across temporal dimensions and investigates the moderating role of financial literacy from a systemic sustainability perspective. Drawing on Construal Level Theory, Dual Process Theory, and Social Cognitive Theory, we analyze data from 21,757 U.S. adults from the 2021 National Financial Capability Study to explore relationships between MFS usage, financial literacy dimensions—objective knowledge (OK), subjective knowledge (SK), and perceived ability (PA)—and both short-term and long-term financial behaviors. The results reveal a dual temporal pattern: MFS usage negatively affects short-term behaviors, including spending control and emergency preparedness, while positively influencing long-term behaviors such as retirement planning and investment participation. Financial literacy dimensions demonstrate differential moderating effects, with OK providing protective benefits against short-term risks, while PA can paradoxically exacerbate these adverse short-term effects. These findings highlight complex implications for sustainable development, demonstrating how individual behaviors aggregate to influence systemic financial resilience and progress toward Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty reduction, economic growth, and inequality reduction. Policymakers should adopt behaviorally informed regulatory approaches that address temporal trade-offs. Educators should design digital-specific literacy programs emphasizing realistic risk assessment alongside confidence-building, thereby promoting sustainable financial behaviors in increasingly digital environments. Full article

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have redefined the dynamics of self-disclosure, enabling users to share personal information in curated and highly visible ways. Existing research often frames this practice through the “privacy paradox,” yet such models overlook the deeper psychological motivations behind online disclosure. Drawing on more than 150 peer-reviewed sources, this paper advances a conceptual distinction between identity and the Self, with emphasis on the expression of the “True Self” in digital contexts. The discussion, informed by psychological perspectives of the self, examines how SNSs facilitate authentic dimensions of identity rarely expressed offline due to fear of judgment. Integrating theoretical frameworks such as Construal Level Theory, perceived control, digital nudging, and social conformity (lemming effect), the review demonstrates that online disclosure reflects not only strategic behavior but also an intrinsic drive for authenticity and self-verification. SNSs thus emerge as spaces of both social performance and authentic self-expression. Full article