Older consumers place relatively higher importance on self-direction, tradition, security, and benevolence. They prize independent thought and action, respect long-standing customs, seek safety and stability, and welcome opportunities to attend to the welfare of others similar to them. Compared to salespeople, who are usually younger than them, the elderly place less importance on accumulating power or demonstrating expertise.
A potentially useful training technique for salespeople selling to the elderly is inspired by a University of Witten-Herdecke study based on a change in social motivations found to be associated with aging: We come to place relatively less importance on seeking information during transactions and relatively more importance on seeking emotionally meaningful interactions.
The researchers had people aged between 18 and 30 years individually participate in a fifteen-minute virtual reality session. The surroundings were a copy of the room in which the session was being held. For some of the participants, the avatar reflecting the participant’s actions in a virtual mirror was a young adult, while for the others, it was an older adult.
Of interest to the researchers was the effect of this experience on a choice given to each participant: Would they prefer to spend a half hour of spare time with “a very close friend,” “an interesting new acquaintance,” or “the author of a book you have read and admire.” The first option was considered by the researchers to represent the most emotionally meaningful interaction.
Compared to the participants embodied in the VR session as a young adult, those embodied as an older adult expressed more interest in spending time with the close friend.
The researchers were struck by the strength of the effect, and they recommend further research to pin down the explanations for it. One possibility is that being embodied as an older adult increases empathy for seniors. A related explanation is that the experience stimulated thoughts about the young adult participant’s own aging. This dynamic was used in a study in which young adults became more likely to invest in a retirement account after being shown digitally-altered photos of what they’d look like decades later—with jowls and bags under the eyes.
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Value Different Values Systems of Seniors
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