This article introduces the fresh start mindset, defined as a belief that people can make a new start, get a new beginning, and chart a new course in life, regardless of their past or present circumstances. With historical roots in American culture and neoliberalism, and with contemporary links to liquid modernity and global consumer culture, this mindset structures reasoning, experience, and everyday language, and guides behavior across self- and other-transformative consumption domains. We develop a six-item scale (FSM) to measure the fresh start mindset and situate it within a broader nomological network, including growth mindset, personal capacity for change, optimism, future temporal focus, internal locus of control, self-efficacy, perseverance, resilience, and consumer variety seeking. Individuals with a stronger (vs. weaker) fresh start mindset invest in transformative change through changing their circumstances, including their own consumption choices (e.g., buying a new pair of sunglasses and getting a new self); they also are more supportive of transformative programs that assist those who are challenged to get a fresh start (i.e., disadvantaged youth, at-risk teens, veterans, and tax-burdened adults). Our work significantly contributes to transformative consumer research with attention to self-activities and programs for vulnerable populations that enable new beginnings.

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Many individuals have been reluctant to follow the COVID‐19 prevention guidelines (e.g., wearing a mask, physical distancing, and vigilant handwashing) set forth by the U.S. Center for Disease Control to reduce the spread of COVID‐19. In this research, we use reciprocal altruism theory to investigate the role of loneliness and its impact on compliance with these guidelines. Our findings indicate that lonely individuals are less willing to comply with COVID‐19 prevention guidelines than non‐lonely individuals. Process evidence suggests that this occurs as loneliness can inhibit an individual's sense of obligation to reciprocate to others. However, we demonstrate that framing information about COVID‐19 through agentic (vs. communal) advertising messaging strategies can offset the negative impact of loneliness on compliance with COVID‐19 prevention guidelines. Thus, marketers and policymakers may want to consider the important role of loneliness when tailoring messaging appeals that encourage compliance with COVID‐19 prevention guidelines.

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Sustainable products are engineered to reduce environmental, ecological, and human costs of consumption. Not all consumers value sustainable products, however, and this poses negative societal implications. Using self-expansion theory as a guide, we explore how an individual’s general sense of belonging—or the perception that one is accepted and valued by others in the broader social world—alters their responses to sustainable products. Five experimental studies and a field study demonstrate that individuals lower in belonging respond less favorably to sustainable products in terms of evaluations and willingness to pay than individuals higher in belonging. Process evidence shows that the extent to which individuals low in belonging perceive that collective, sustainable choices will impact them personally drives this result and that belonging does not impact responses to conventional (i.e., non-sustainable) products. However, perceiving a shared human experience—or that individuals share some important, basic similarities with all people—attenuates the negative effect of low belonging on responses to sustainable products for consumers both low and high in belonging. This research has significant implications for businesses and society given the growing sense of disconnect in modern society. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-022-05257-0.