Getting in touch with your thinking style: How touchscreens influence purchase

Touchscreen technology has rapidly penetrated the consumer market and embedded itself into our daily lives. Given the pervasiveness of this new phenomenon, we know surprisingly little about its effect on consumers. This research updates academic theory by investigating how newly evolved touchscreen technology affects consumer behavior. Across three lab experiments with university students, we found purchase intentions differ across device and product nature. In particular, this research demonstrates that purchase intention differs between touchscreens and desktop computers. Further, situation-specific thinking style is revealed as an underlying mechanism that contributes to such differences, such that touchscreens evoke a stronger experiential thinking style, while desktops evoke a stronger rational thinking style. Moreover, the findings suggest that greater experiential thinking enhances a consumer’s preference towards hedonic products, while greater rational thinking endorses utilitarian products. Together, this pattern leads touchscreen users to prefer hedonic products over utilitarian products. Given the growing usage of touchscreen devices, this research has important implications for consumers, marketers, and policy makers.