Loved As-Is: How God Salience Lowers Interest in Self-Improvement Products
研究发现，当上帝概念在消费者心中更显著时，他们对自我提升产品的兴趣会降低，因为感受到被无条件接纳，从而减少自我提升的动机。
Abstract Consumers often desire to become better versions of themselves. Reflecting this interest in self-improvement, the marketplace offers consumers a wide range of products and services that promise to improve or better the consumer in some way. But, in a world with unlimited opportunities to spend one’s time and money, what influences whether consumers will invest in products that enable self-improvement? We demonstrate that the degree to which God is salient has a negative effect on individuals’ preferences for consumption choices with self-improvement features compared to equally attractive options that do not include such features. We propose that this is because thoughts of God activate a greater sense of being loved for who you are (“loved ‘as-is’”), making self-improvement a lower priority. We demonstrate this basic effect across several experiments as well as archival data, provide process evidence through mediation and moderation, and address alternative explanations. We also identify important boundary conditions: God salience is less likely to decrease interest in self-improvement products when consumers do not believe in God, and when God is considered to be a punishing (vs. loving) entity.