「強迫接受」與「強迫拒絕」：消費者對不同類型的強迫採用之反應

Abstract

為了加快消費者接受新產品的速度，企業經常採取強硬的手段，迫使消費者使用這些新產品，例如航空業者強迫旅客使用自助報到的服務，或是電腦業者直接將舊版的軟體停產。然而，本研究發現這種行銷方式容易讓消費者產生抗拒，反而降低他們對新產品的接受度。本研究也進一步將新產品的強迫採用區分為「強迫接受」與「強迫拒絕」兩種情況，並應用心理抗拒理論，探討這兩種類型的強迫採用對消費者造成的影響，以及兩者之間的交互作用。本研究依序設計兩個實驗，針對研究假設進行驗證。研究一之結果顯示，無論是強迫接受或是強迫拒絕，只要業者採取較為強硬的手段，都會對消費者造成威脅，引發他們的心理抗拒。研究二則發現，儘管強迫接受和強迫拒絕本身會造成類似的效應，但兩者之間存在著明顯的交互作用。具體而言，在消費者被迫使用新產品的情況下，業者若能同時停止舊產品的供應，反而會降低強迫採用所帶來的負面影響。本研究之主要貢獻有以下兩點。第一，本研究由心理抗拒的角度探討強迫採用對消費者的影響，補足過去研究的不足。第二，本研究針對強迫接受與強迫拒絕兩種情況進行區分，並驗證兩者之間存在交互作用。最後，本研究根據實驗之結果，提出管理意涵以及對後續研究之建議。

To increase the adoption rate, companies often force consumers to use their new product, which is found to be harmful in our study. For example, some airlines replace traditional service with auto check-in kiosks, thus forcing customers to use automated service. Software companies, similarly, often shut down old editions of programs in order to increase the utility rate of their new programs. However, we find that such “forced adoption” may result in consumers’ resistance of new products, leading to contrary behaviors. We also apply psychological reactance theory to investigate consumers’ responses to two types of forced adoption: “forced to accept” and “forced to reject.” We conduct two studies to test our hypotheses. The result of study1 reveals that both forced acceptance and forced rejection result in consumers’ perceived threat and psychological reactance. Study 2 further finds that there are interaction effects between two types of forced adoption. Specifically, negative effects of forced acceptance may be mitigated if old products were no longer feasible. The first contribution of this research is to apply psychological reactance theory to forced adoption conditions. The second contribution is to test the interaction effects of two type of forced adoption. According to the results, we also discuss the managerial implication and suggestions for further research.