From Scarcity Cues and Social Proof to FoMO: A Dual-Mediation Model of Urgency in Consumer Decision-Making

This research examines the psychological mechanisms that drive consumers’ fear of missing out (FoMO) in the context of digital marketing. Consumers are increasingly influenced by market dynamics that affect product availability and vendors’ supply chains, often alongside the widespread impact of suppliers’ marketing messages and social factors. Using the S-O-R (stimulus–organism–response) model, we test a double-mediation model via structural equation modeling on a sample of online customers. The main goal of the study is to examine how the effects of social proof and perceived scarcity create a sense of urgency, thereby influencing FoMO. The results indicate that customers’ perceptions of scarcity have a strong and statistically significant effect on urgency, while social proof exerts a weaker yet notable influence. Moreover, urgency significantly amplifies both the socially related component and the general fear of missed opportunities. Mediation analyses reveal that perceived scarcity affects FoMO indirectly through urgency. Although this supports the proposed mediation pathway, the substantial empirical overlap between perceived scarcity and urgency suggests that this relationship should be interpreted with caution. In contrast, social proof’s indirect effects are not statistically significant. These findings suggest that urgency serves as a crucial psychological mechanism mediating the influence of perceived scarcity on consumers’ emotional responses, while social proof may operate through alternative channels, such as social comparison or normative influence. This paper contributes to the S-O-R model and offers new insights into commodity theory and cognitive dissonance theory.