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Perceived product creativity and mental contrasting: Desired future on consumers’ product replacement decisions

Consumers often imagine what it would be like to own a new product. Does engaging in such thoughts on desired future impact consumers’ purchase intentions, and if so, what is the underlying process? This study sets out to investigate the posed questions by assessing self‐regulatory strategies consumers employ upon pondering on a desired future. Based on Oettingen’s fantasy realization model, the authors take a comparative approach of two modes on desired future— mental contrasting and indulging —en route to purchase intentions. In mental contrasting, an individual juxtaposes a desired future with his/her present reality, whereas, indulging is simply envisioning a desired future. Contingent upon the perceived likelihood of fantasy realization, consumers in the mental‐contrasting condition adjust their level—that is, high (low) for high (low) feasibility case—in goal commitment as well as in energization to achieve the desired future. In contrast, consumers in the indulging condition engage in moderate level of goal commitment—irrespective of the likelihood of fantasy realization. In a series of experiments, this study scrutinizes the fantasy realization model in context of attribute alignability/nonalignability, uncertainty in attribute meaningfulness and novelty, technological and psychological obsolescence en route to affecting the consumers’ product purchase/upgrade intentions. Conceptually, this study is the first to adapt the fantasy realization model to the marketing context, and the authors provide managerial implications of their key findings.