Mood management through metaverse enhancing life satisfaction

This study aims to explore a social metaverse's positive effects as mood management on consumers' life satisfaction and usage intentions. A total of 304 survey responses from active users of a popular social metaverse platform, Zepeto, were collected with help from an online survey firm. Structural equation modeling analysis was conducted using AMOS 25.0. The direct paths from social metaverse consumption as positive mood enhancement and negative mood alleviation to consumers' life satisfaction were significant, which led to greater usage intentions. Positive mood enhancement influenced usage intentions both directly and indirectly through increased life satisfaction; however, the effect of negative mood alleviation on usage intentions was fully mediated by life satisfaction. Interestingly, for the players who spend money in the social metaverse, only the path from negative mood alleviation to usage intentions mediated by life satisfaction was significant.