Table 1.
List of key themes and descriptions.
| Key Theme * | Brief Description | Occurrence |
|---|---|---|
| Production selection | The impacts of perceived loneliness or social isolation on consumers’ choice or preference of products or services | 12 |
| Brand | Response to brand communities, such as brand attitude and brand participation | 9 |
| Affiliation motivation | Fundamental motivation of belongingness to a social group, which guides lonely consumers’ consumption behaviours | 8 |
| Attachment to nonhuman | Attachment to materials or products as a replacement of interpersonal relationships | 8 |
| Self-affirmation | Confirmation and enhancement of self-identity and personal uniqueness, which guide lonely consumers’ consumption behaviours | 7 |
| Anthropomorphism | Built-in human-like features in nonhuman agents, appealing to lonely consumers’ empathy and liking | 6 |
| Marketplace relationships | Relationships with an in-store salesperson, hosts of e-commerce sites or brands due to lack of quality social interactions in consumers’ daily life | 6 |
| Mobility and disability issues | Physiological restrictions that cause loneliness and social isolation, which are often associated with senior consumers | 5 |
| Persuasion | External cues such as advertisements and promotional information that appeal to consumers’ loneliness, and the associated responses from consumers | 5 |
| Prosocial behaviour | Behaviours for social well-being, such as helping others, donation and green consumption, which are demonstrated by lonely consumers to gain social inclusion | 5 |
| Consumer well-being | Physical and mental conditions of consumers, which are often impaired by loneliness but improved via several coping strategies | 4 |
| Distinct and popular products | Preferences for minority- or majority-endorsed products, depending on consumers’ motivations and needs to cope with loneliness | 4 |
| Cultural effects | Macro-level cultural impacts on lonely consumers, such as collectivism vs. individualism, independent vs. interdependence, low-context vs. high-context | 3 |
| Experiential and material products | Preferences for experiential or material consumption by lonely consumers | 3 |
| Feelings and reasons | Information processing mechanisms, which can be affect-based or cognition-based in response to persuasions | 3 |
| Gender differences | Gender as a moderator of various behaviours of lonely shoppers | 3 |
| Materialism | Importance attached to owning symbolic material possessions, which is not only the cause but also a consequence of loneliness | 3 |
| Reciprocal effect of loneliness | Consequences of loneliness, which in turn reinforce loneliness, which depicts the dynamic impacts of loneliness, such as materialism | 3 |
| Solo shopper | Consumers who engage with consumption activities alone, who may or may not be lonely | 3 |
| Visual preferences | Aesthetic preferences, which may be modified by consumers’ state of loneliness, such as a preference for warmth and crowdedness | 3 |
* Only parts of the themes are used for generating co-occurrence network based on their association strength.