The closer I am, the safer I feel: The “distance proximity effect” of COVID‐19 pandemic on individuals' risk assessment and irrational consumption

Abstract

The unprecedented crisis of COVID‐19 posed severe negative consequences for consumers, marketers, and society at large. By investigating the effect of individuals' distance from the COVID‐19 epicenter (i.e., the geographical area in which COVID‐19 pandemic is currently most severe) on consumers' risk perception and subsequent behaviors, this research provides novel empirical findings that can offer practical insights for marketers. While intuitively, people expect individuals closer to the COVID‐19 epicenter to generate a greater risk perception of the pandemic, empirical evidence from four studies provides consistent results for the opposite effect. We find that a closer (vs. farther) distance to the epicenter associates with lower (vs. higher) perceived risk of the pandemic, leading to less (vs. more) irrational consumption behaviors. We refer to this phenomenon as the “distance proximity effect,” which holds for both physical and psychological distances. We further demonstrated that this effect is mediated by consumers' perception of uncertainty and moderated by individuals' risk aversion tendency. The current research contributes to the literature of consumers' risk perception and irrational consumption by highlighting a novel factor of distance proximity. It also offers some timely insights into managing and intervening COVID‐19 related issues inside and outside an epicenter.

Scarcity in COVID‐19 vaccine supplies reduces perceived vaccination priority and increases vaccine hesitancy

“…This could be because not even high‐risk individuals surmise that they should have more priority when vaccines are scarce. Ultimately, these surprising results could also be because risk assessments are subjective in healthcare contexts, depending on such factors as distance to pandemic epicenters (Li et al, 2021), and is even potentially malleable depending on message cues (Menon et al, 2002; Murdock & Rajagopal, 2017). Our research highlights that extra care is warranted when considering risk in a healthcare context.…”

COVID-19 research in management: An updated bibliometric analysis

“… Adams-Prassl et al, 2022 , Balakrishnan and Ramanathan, 2021 , Chen et al, 2020 , Ciravegna and Michailova, 2022 , Donthu et al, 2021 , Donthu et al, 2021 , Ferreira et al, 2014 , Ketchen and Craighead, 2020 , Kreiner and Ram, 2020 , Lee et al, 2021 , Li et al, 2021 , Paul et al, 2021 , Rojas-Lamorena et al, 2022 .…”

The impact of socioeconomic status on preferences for sustainable luxury brands

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