What Is Mine Is Yours: How Sharing Economy Promotes Consumer Altruistic Behaviors

Sharing economy has transformed consumers’ lifestyle and behaviors over the last few years. Given how pervasive sharing economy has become in consumers’ daily lives, it is important to understand how the salience of sharing economy influence consumer judgment and decision. Based on the extant literature on communality and altruism, this research explores how the salience of sharing economy concept can induce altruistic behaviors in unrelated domains. Across one pilot test and five main studies, this paper demonstrates that recalling past experience participating in sharing economy as users or mere exposure to sharing economy brand logos activates communal considerations, which subsequently increases consumers’ altruistic tendency reflected in their greater willingness to volunteer time and donate money to real charity organizations in field settings (Studies 1a and 1b), desire for green products (Studies 2-3), and likelihood to help others in need with a real behavioral measure (Study 4). Furthermore, the effect is driven by the heightened communal considerations and is attenuated when consumers are primed with salient thoughts on individuality (vs. communality). We also ruled out mood and conceptual fluency as alternative accounts of the findings. Theoretical and practical implications as well as future research directions are discussed. (196 words)