Consumers' Views of Feng Shui: Antecedents and Behavioral Consequences

Abstract

Consumers have three views about Feng Shui: instrumental, spiritual, and minimalist. According to the instrumental view, Feng Shui arrangements can affect luck and fortune. The spiritual view treats Feng Shui as part of one's spiritual life and cultural identification. The minimalist view dismisses Feng Shui as superstition. We developed psychometric scales for measuring these three views and the intention to make Feng Shui-related purchase, and conducted two studies to establish the reliability and validity of these scales. The participants in Study 1 were 331 university students; 180 working adults were the participants in Study 2. These three views of Feng Shui have different antecedents. Their effects on the intention to make Feng Shui-related purchase are also different. The effect of the instrumental view is positive and the strongest, but that of the spiritual view and the minimalist view is weakly positive and negative, respectively. The marketing implications of these findings are discussed.