Thesis Format
Monograph
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
Business
Supervisor
Goode, Miranda
2nd Supervisor
Kristofferson, Kirk
Co-Supervisor
Abstract
Solitary consumers are a growing presence in the marketplace, and businesses in the experiential consumption space are adapting their offering to cater to them. Yet the marketing literature has remarkably little to say about solitary experiences, and what it does say suggests that solitary experiences should be unappealing. Drawing on examinations of solitude in psychology, I posit that differences in happiness between solitary and social experiences reported by extant work are attributable to differences in the motivations underlying each experience type. In a series of studies employing qualitative and experimental methodologies, I elucidate the role that motivation for solitude plays in solitary experiential consumption. In Study 1, I conceptualize motivation for solitude as separate from motivation for the focal activity and outline the diverse functions of solitude in driving and supporting consumers’ motivated solitary experiences. In Studies 2 and 3, I highlight asymmetries in motivations that contribute to greater social (vs. solitary) experience happiness. Specifically, I find that consumers’ pursuit of solitary experiences is less intrinsically motivated and more amotivated than their pursuit of social experiences, and that this difference in motivational composition accounts for the reported difference in happiness. In Study 4, I identify opportunity cost considerations as a barrier to motivated solitary experiences and find that even consumers who are highly motivated to seek solitude consider the costs of forgoing a social experience. The implication of these findings is that research in marketing comparing solitary and social experiential purchases without accounting for motivational differences is examining more than the impact of the presence or absence of social others. Theoretically, this perspective uncovers a new dimension of consumption that has previously been overlooked: motivated solitary consumption.
Summary for Lay Audience
This research focuses on understanding why people pursue experiences (e.g., trips, concerts) by themselves. While businesses are starting to cater to customers looking for one-person experiences, the existing research in marketing has little to say about consuming experiences alone. In fact, what the research suggests is that these experiences should be unappealing to consumers, as they make people less happy than experiences shared with others. In this dissertation, I argue that the difference in happiness from pursuing experiences alone versus with others is caused by different reasons that people have for going into these experiences by themselves or with others. I conducted several studies to examine this idea. In Study 1, I conducted interviews and found that people are often motivated by solitude specifically—that is, the state of being alone—not just by the activity they want to do, when choosing to have an experience by themselves. I found that being alone offers a number of benefits, which motivate people to want to have solitary experiences. In Studies 2 and 3, I measured the reasons why people went into experiences by themselves or with others. I found that people are going into experiences by themselves less for the enjoyment of being alone and more because of circumstances outside of their control, compared to how much enjoyment of being together and circumstances motivate people to pursue experiences with others. This difference in motivations explained the difference in happiness that people get from experiences alone or with others. Finally, in Study 4, I find that one of the reasons why people feel less motivated by enjoyment of solitary experiences is because they are thinking about the fact that they are not having that experience with others. Overall, this research suggests that understanding why people choose to engage in experiences by themselves is important for businesses, and sheds light on consumer behaviour that has not received much attention before.
Recommended Citation
Jurewicz, Zuzanna, "Seeking Solitude: An Examination of the Motivational Underpinnings of Solitary Experiences" (2024). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 10196.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/10196