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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1379992

How social and media cues induce live streaming impulse buying? SOR model perspective

Provisionally accepted
Yu Xiang Xia Yu Xiang Xia 1Seong Wook Chae Seong Wook Chae 2*Yi Cai Xiang Yi Cai Xiang 1
  • 1 Department of Economics, Jiujiang University, Jiujiang, China
  • 2 Department of Digital Business, Hoseo University, Cheonan, Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Live streaming is revolutionizing the landscape of e-commerce, creating new opportunities for platforms and e-tailers to improve their performance. However, little is known ahout the underlying mechanisms that shape consumer behavior in this burgeoning business phenomenon. This study aims to shed light on the relationships between environmental cues generated by live streaming and online impulse buying. Drawing upon the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, a comprehensive model was formulated to explore how social cues (streamer interaction, peer interaction) and media cues (vividness, realness) impact pleasure, arousal, perceived uncertainty, and subsequently induce consumers’ urge to buy impulsively. The model was tested by survey data from 403 consumers. SPSS and PLS are employed to verify the model. The findings revealed that realness and streamer interaction can reduce perceived uncertainty and foster a pleasant consumer experience, while vividness and peer interaction serve to awaken and delight consumers. Pleasure, arousal, and perceived uncertainty mediate antecedent variables’ effects on urge to buy impulsively in a parallel and reverse way, and emotions exert a more powerful influence. This study enriched the research on the influence mechanisms of impulse buying driven by live streaming and provided suggestions for platforms and streamers to optimize product display and guide interaction, which is conducive to leveraging the advantages of live streaming and creating greater commercial value.

    Keywords: live streaming e-commerce, Social cues, Media cues, emotion, Perceived uncertainty, Urge to buy impulsively

    Received: 31 Jan 2024; Accepted: 25 Apr 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Xia, Chae and Xiang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Seong Wook Chae, Department of Digital Business, Hoseo University, Cheonan, Republic of Korea

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.