The busier, the better? The effect of a busy mindset on the preference for self‐improvement products

Abstract

Busyness has become more prevalent, and the state of being busy and associated cues have been increasingly employed as a marketing strategy by numerous businesses and marketers. The current research integrates two online experiments, one field experiment, one laboratory experiment, and one secondary data to examine the busy mindset, referred to as a subjective perception of busyness, and how it impacts consumers' preferences for self‐improvement products. First, busy mindsets made individuals more inclined toward products that promote self‐improvement (studies 1, 2, and 3). Furthermore, sense of authentic pride served as a mediator in the effect of a busy mindset on self‐improvement products (study 4). This study also investigated the moderating effect of work ethic on the above mechanisms (study 5). Finally, we used a second data set (study 6) to verify the main effect of a busy mindset on the preference for self‐improvement products. This research not only enriches the theory of busyness but also offers practical implications for marketing self‐improvement products.