11 Chapter 1 row, 1998); therefore, consumers experience impulse buying urges in particular with hedonic products, such as fashionable sweaters or delicious chocolates (e.g., Gültekin & Özer, 2012). Furthermore, there is academic consensus on the fact that impulse buying can be affected by external stimuli, such as media cues (e.g., Stern, 1962; Rook, 1987; Rook & Gardner, 1993; Dutta & Mandal, 2018). In the next section, we will elaborate on the three contemporary media cues central to this dissertation that may affect impulse buying. The possible effect of contemporary media cues on impulse buying Impulse buying is often affected by external stimuli, such as media cues (e.g., Rook & Gardner, 1993). In response to contemporary societal developments, at least three new media cues are now more commonly used in society: phygital cues, corporate socially responsibility (CSR) advertising cues, and mediated mindfulness cues. In this section, we will discuss 1) The societal developments from where the studied contemporary media cues arise; 2) How these cues potentially affect impulse buying; and 3) The potential role of self-inference processes in these effects (also see Figure 1). Furthermore, this paragraph outlines the three main objectives of this dissertation. Phygital cues The continuous merging of the physical and digital world is a first contemporary societal development relevant to impulse buying. Until recently, characteristics of online stores, such as scrolling through what appears to be an unlimited selection of products at one’s own pace (e.g., Abdelsalam et al., 2020), seemed to be reserved for online retailers only. However, due to the continuous merging of the digital and physical world, it is now possible to transfer these benefits of online stores to physical ones through so-called phygital cues. Phygital cues are technologies that bridge the digital and physical world, such as the placement of interactive screens in brick-and-mortar stores. The implementation of interactive screens in stores is expanding (Wang, 2021). The literature shows that interactivity levels of these interactive screens are related to persuasive outcomes, like impulse buying, in online contexts (e.g., Kim & LaRose, 2004; Huang, 2016; Yim et al., 2017; Hu and Wise, 2021). However, it is unclear whether this interactivity also affects impulse buying in a physical surrounding. Therefore, we will first study the effect of interactive screens in physical stores on impulse buying urges. The literature suggests that consumers are easier to persuade through high (versus low) interactive content, since they feel freer to make their own choices. This is in line with the Reactance Theory (Brehm, 1966), which states that people are easier to persuade when they feel enabled to make their own choices (e.g., through interactive content; see Hu and Wise, 2021) than when they feel threatened in this freedom (e.g., by non-interactive ads; see Edwards et al., 2002). Therefore, we argue that the self-inference process “self-agency” functions as a mediator in the suggested effect of interactive screens on impulse urges. This means that we expect that interactive screens affect self-agency, and self-agency affects impulse buying urges. Self-agency refers to the feeling that people shape their own actions and influence their outcomes; therefore, it is linked to freedom
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