Mindful Consumption: Three Consumer Segment Views

As consumers are moving away from mindless consumerism, a mindful consumption literature has emerged that is based on Buddhist and psychological perspectives of mindfulness. While the idea of mindful consumption has great potential, there is little empirical research to date that comprehensively examines the consumer perspective on the role of mindfulness on consumption. To provide a grounded consumer perspective, the authors segment mindful consumption views from open-end text using a mixed method of clustering and text mining. By analyzing the segmentation structure, the authors discover various consumer views of mindful consumption, such as careful economic based consumption, monitoring activities of firms, and being informed about the impact of consumption choices. The authors compare the empirical results with the academic literature to provide directions for future research.