Does a cute pet make a difference in home-sharing booking intentions? A moderated serial mediation analysis

This research explores a positive effect of pets’ cuteness on consumer intentions to reserve home-sharing services and further reveals the underlying mechanism via a serial-mediating pathway (i.e., social psychological distance → perceived warmth of host) as well as a boundary condition (i.e., consumers’ need for uniqueness) for the pet cuteness effect. Through three studies with five experiments, the findings suggest that cute pets (vs. less cute) can increase booking intention due to reduced social psychological distance and increased perceived warmth of the host. The pet cuteness effect is only significant among consumers who exhibit a low (vs. high) need for uniqueness. These findings provide significant contributions to the existing literature and marketing intelligence for home-sharing services.