Preference for utilitarian or hedonic value options during a pandemic crisis: The moderation effects of childhood socioeconomic status and sensation-seeking

This research investigated hospitality consumers’ relative preferences for utilitarian or hedonic value under COVID-19 pandemic conditions. A series of four experiments and one secondary data analysis showed that the salience of the infectious disease threat increased consumers’ preferences for hospitality options that provide relatively more utilitarian than hedonic value. Additionally, we identified two individual differences (i.e., childhood socioeconomic status (SES) & sensation-seeking) that moderated the effect of the infectious disease threat on the preferred hospitality consumption value. Specifically, the higher the childhood SES, the higher was the preference for the utilitarian value option, and the lower the level of sensation-seeking, the greater was the preference for the utilitarian value option. This research extends our understanding of the influence of the infectious disease threat on preference changes in hospitality decisions.