Abstract: The motivation for productive consumption is often seen as a pursuit of a higher sense of experience, uniqueness and product quality, but psychological needs are equally critical to consumers. Productive consumption can bring about intrinsic perception of competence, while social comparisons that are ubiquitous in daily life can make people feel inadequate and failed. From the perspective of compensatory consumption, the threat of the sense of capacity brought about by social comparison can be made up by productive consumption. This study demonstrates the influence of social comparison on productive consumption and its internal influence mechanism through three experiments. Compared with the downward comparison, the upward comparison will result in a lack of control and lead to a higher preference for productive consumption. The influence of the upward comparison on the sense of control will be moderated by self-affirmation. The influence of sense of control on productive consumption preference is also moderated by perceived production difficulty.

Key words: social comparison, productive consumption, sense of control, compensatory consumption