Seeing the forest through the trees and on tees: Nature and consumer decision-making

Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2025 · Volume 35 · Issue 3

Abstract

Rim, Schertz, and Berman (Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2025) present prior research examining the affective, cognitive, and social benefits of humans' interactions with nature. In doing so, they offer some specific applications to consumer psychology and encourage more research examining the consequences of nature interaction on consumer behaviors. We build on this important work by considering the breadth of potential forms of interaction between consumers and nature in both indoor and outdoor spaces as well as in real and virtual (i.e., representations of) nature exposures. We build on semantic activation and goal-systems theory to elaborate further on how nature can influence consumers. Specifically, associations elicited by nature can activate or enhance the importance of certain goals during the consumption process, thus driving consumers' judgments and decision-making. We elaborate on how nature can be specifically applied to the place, product, and promotion elements of the marketing mix and how future research can examine the consequences of nature interactions on consumer behavior.

Keywords

nature, perception, product and product design, retailing and atmospherics, sensory marketing, shopping, sustainability

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