How Aesthetic and Economic Factors Affect Consumers’ Purchasing Decisions: Evidence from EEG

Consumer theory identifies cultural and economic factors as key influences on purchasing decisions. Artworks, as material carriers of culture, are shaped by these factors in a particularly pronounced way. This study proposes that consumers’ artwork purchasing decisions are jointly determined by aesthetic and economic considerations. Using event-related potential (ERP) technology, artworks were classified into a 2 by 2 matrix of aesthetic valence and price. Seventy students from a university in western China made purchase or rejection decisions while their electroencephalogram was recorded. Results showed that both aesthetic and price factors jointly influenced artwork purchasing decisions. Aesthetic valence had a larger effect (F(1, 69) = 134.98, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.662) than price (F(1, 69) = 22.47, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.246), and participants were most willing to buy positively rated, low-priced artworks (M = 42.2%, SD = 24.2). The medial frontal negativity (MFN) amplitude and theta-band power were larger during purchase than rejection decisions, and this difference was most pronounced when participants chose to buy negatively rated artworks (t(48) = 4.31, p < 0.001, d = 0.61). Because the sample was drawn from a single university in western China and consisted of young students, the conclusions carry generalisability limitations. This study maps aesthetic and economic considerations during consumer purchasing onto separable neural processes, contributing to the intersection of cultural neuroscience and neuroeconomics.