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Customer experience in immersive virtual reality retail : exploring behaviors, emotions, and touchpoints across the shopping journey : a thesis with publications presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Technology, School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, Massey University, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2025-08-01) Erensoy, Aysu
Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) is transforming the retail landscape by merging sensory engagement with the personalization and convenience of digital platforms. As part of the rapidly evolving metaverse, iVR has the potential to redefine customer experience (CX) and create immersive, multisensory shopping environments. However, understanding how iVR shapes customer behaviors, emotions, and interactions across the shopping journey remains limited. These gaps hinder businesses from fully optimizing CX in this emerging domain. This research aims to address these challenges by exploring the influence of iVR retail touchpoints on CX and developing frameworks to advance theoretical and practical knowledge in iVR retail. This study employed a human-centered design methodology, integrating systematic literature reviews, semi-structured interviews with VR design experts, and iVR experiments with end-users. The literature review established a theoretical foundation, identifying challenges and opportunities in iVR retail. Semi-structured interviews with experts explored critical touchpoints, emotions, behaviors, and the design processes underlying iVR environments. Complementing these, VR experiments, card-sorting activities, and end-user interviews captured the behaviors and emotions of participants across the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages of the shopping journey. This study offers significant theoretical advancements by extending the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model to better capture the complexities of CX in immersive virtual environments. It provides a nuanced understanding of how sensory stimuli influence emotional responses and consumer behaviors, particularly within iVR retail contexts. This extension enables a more comprehensive analysis of the relationships between touchpoints, emotions, and shopping processes. Additionally, the study adapts the Double Diamond framework, tailoring it to meet the unique demands of iVR design. This refined framework supports designers in addressing the iterative nature of immersive retail experiences across discovery, definition, development, and delivery phases. Additionally, the key outcome of this research is developing a CX framework that detailed the iVR customer journey, illustrating how user interactions, emotional responses, and behaviors evolve across the pre-purchase, purchase, and post purchase stages. These findings not only highlight the underlying mechanics of creating positive CX in iVR environments but also identify the drivers of emotional connection and satisfaction, laying the groundwork for further exploration and application in this transformative retail medium. This research contributes to both theoretical and practical understanding of iVR retail environments. Theoretically, it advances models such as the S-O-R model and refines the Double Diamond framework, aligning them with the complexities of immersive technologies and offering tools for analyzing how iVR reshapes CX. Practically, the study provides actionable design guidelines to address key challenges in iVR retail, including improving usability with intuitive interfaces, enhancing accessibility through features like voice navigation, and fostering emotional engagement via sensory-rich experiences. These guidelines support the creation of inclusive, engaging, and effective iVR shopping environments that serve as a roadmap for future studies for exploring and validating emergent technological innovations in iVR retail.
On LIFE within the Society-of-Captives : exploring the pains of imprisonment for real : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024-12-12) Luff, Daniel John
Institutional and social discourse upholds the prison as an effective rehabilitative solution to crime, but more recently there has been increasing criticism of the prison as a producer of harm rather than healing. Despite such criticism, discussions of the rehabilitative potentials of prisons predominantly exclude and silence insider, incarcerate voices in criminal justice debates and literature, and often do not describe what those ‘inside’, like me, are living and experiencing. The primary aim of this project is to theorise twenty years of lived experience of incarceration in the hope of contributing to the work being done to problematise risk-averse, harmful correctional practices. Through a deeply reflexive autoethnographic performance, the reader comes with me beyond prison walls, into the largely closed off, inaccessible world within. Through navigation of my lived experience of imprisonment, I reflexively theorise memories of incarceration that are usually only speculated upon through objective, exclusionary research. The account that emerges from theorising incarceration ‘for real’ analyses the constraints of political narratives and risk averse policy and practice produced within our prison system, and within the bodies that system contains. Through an interweave of autoethnographic field noting, performance and analysis, the research unpacks the connections between the structural, socio-political issues, and the pains of incarceration. Using Arrigo’s Society of Captives (SOC) thesis, the harms being produced are theorised with regard to subjectivities constituted through prison – the prisoner, their guard, and society at large. Theoretical storying shows how socio-political issues are having considerably detrimental impacts on correctional policy and practice. Prisoners are neither seen nor heard, and their keepers too are held captive, unable to engage with their charges ethically lest they be reprimanded for doing corrections differently. Through this multi-layered harm, a society of captives is being perpetuated within which the very harm and risk it proclaims to alleviate is reproduced. Embedded in a pursuit of social justice, I argue for a relational, ethical praxis wherein people are seen, and heard, for real. The change is not only theorised but rare instances of it, and the healing power it produces, demonstrated. Through autoethnography’s theoretical praxis, and embracing of the SOC thesis’ pursuit of becoming, my research also involves considerable personal movement. It illustrates how, through the utilisation of autoethnographic methodology, in particular reflexive process, it becomes possible to ethically resist harmful representations and risk-focused correctional practices. In making these movements the research brings us out of prison, and provides in-depth consideration of my bodily attempts to reintegrate into the community after two decades of largely harmful carceral experiences. In these, the narrative contributes to a growing consciousness, global debate, and movement regarding prison, rehabilitation, and how community safety is best served. And it contributes to a process of becoming within me, a bodily movement, a transition into a place where humanness can be done differently…
The development of a psychosocial intervention that supports siblings of children and adolescents with serious chronic health conditions in Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University
(Massey University, 2024-11-12) Armstrong, Kathleen
Due to recent advances in medical care, many childhood chronic health conditions (CHCs) are less likely to be fatal and more able to be successfully managed. This has led to an increase in the prevalence of children living with CHCs, which presents the affected child, their parents, and their siblings with significant long-term consequences and challenges. Extant literature points to siblings of children with CHCs being a vulnerable population who are at increased risk of developing depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress symptoms, lower quality of life, and disruption to academic and social functioning. Consequently, there have been calls for the development of sibling support services both in Aotearoa New Zealand (New Zealand) and internationally. Recent needs-based research on siblings of children with cancer and other serious CHCs in New Zealand reported critical unmet needs across the following domains: Information about the illness; Dealing with feelings; Time out and recreation; Support from friends and other young people; Understanding from their family; and Relationship with their affected sibling. These findings emphasise the necessity of a nationwide intervention that provides siblings with support close to the time of their brother’s or sister’s diagnosis. The aim of the present study was to develop a needs-based psychosocial intervention for siblings of children with serious CHCs, which protects and promotes the health and wellbeing of this vulnerable population and recognises their existing individual and familial strengths. A literature review was conducted to investigate the impact serious childhood CHCs have on siblings, and to establish whether the commonalities in sibling experiences justify taking a transdiagnostic approach in the development of a sibling intervention. This was followed by a systematised review of existing sibling interventions and an evaluation of their efficacy. Informed by the two major reviews and existing needs-based sibling research, a manualised intervention was developed to meet the self-reported unmet needs of siblings, using a combination of evidence-based therapeutic modalities.
Do climate anxiety and pro-environmental behaviour affect one another? : a longitudinal investigation : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the qualification of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024) McLean, Tamara Alice
Anthropogenic climate change poses a serious threat to psychological wellbeing. One particular negative emotional response gaining scholarly attention is climate anxiety: anxious feelings arising from climate change, even among people not yet personally impacted by this global environmental crisis. Research suggests that climate anxiety might be implicated in pro-environmental behaviour. Specifically, climate anxiety may motivate individuals to act in ways that, if widely adopted, could mitigate the damage caused by climate change. Furthermore, there is a common assumption that these sustainable behaviours will alleviate climate anxiety, creating a mutually beneficial cycle where pro-climate actions increase and distressing anxiety is eased. However, these ideas are not well supported by empirical and theoretical evidence. This study aimed to test the hypotheses that 1) climate anxiety causes pro-environmental behaviour to increase over time, and 2) pro-environmental behaviour causes climate anxiety to decrease over time. A sample of 700 Australian and New Zealand adults was recruited via the online research platform Prolific and surveyed monthly on five occasions. Data were analysed using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model, which controlled for stable, between-person differences while focusing on dynamic within-person changes over time. The study found no evidence of a causal relationship between climate anxiety and pro-environmental behaviour. Higher levels of climate anxiety at one wave were not significantly associated with higher levels of pro-environmental behaviour at the following wave, and higher levels of pro-environmental behaviour at one wave were not significantly associated with lower levels of climate anxiety at the next wave. Furthermore, levels of climate anxiety were very low across the sample, indicating that climate anxiety, experienced at a level that causes clinically significant emotional and cognitive impairment, is relatively rare. These findings suggest that climate anxiety is unlikely to have the helpful side effect of increasing an individual’s engagement in pro-environmental behaviour, but neither will it deter a person from taking action. Moreover, taking action is unlikely to reduce climate anxiety. Further scholarship is needed to investigate climate anxiety and its complex relationship with pro-environmental behaviour.
Consumer emotional engagement with plant-based meat alternatives : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Food Technology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024) Orr, Rebekah Eleanor
Plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs) can support consumers in reducing meat consumption without having to drastically change the way they eat. However, consumer uptake of PBMAs is low highlighting the need for a better understanding of the drivers of PBMA acceptance. The research presented in this thesis aimed to do this by leveraging two innovative techniques in sensory consumer research: measuring emotional response and using digital immersive environments (digital-IEs). As no emotion lexicon had been published for plant-based patties (PB-patties) or PBMAs in general before this work, an emotional lexicon specific to comparing meat and PB-patties was created. Taking a unique approach, participants were immersed (using digital-IEs) in two relevant burger-eating scenarios to evoke key emotions associated with plant-based patty (PB-patty) consumption in realistic scenarios. Different age and diet groups were included in the lexicon development process to ensure it was inclusive of the range of emotions that could potentially be experienced by end-users. The lexicon included emotions not found in generic lexicons, highlighting the value of a product-specific lexicon for gaining deeper insights. Many emotions were negatively classified, such as ‘deceived’, ‘disappointed’, and ‘anxious’, while others were positively classified, including ‘amazed’ and ‘hopeful’. The lexicon was applied with meat-eating consumers to emotionally profile a variety of commercially available meat and plant-based patties, alongside measures of liking, sensory attributes, and perceived similarity to a beef patty. Findings revealed that PB-patties closely resembling beef were the most appealing to meat eaters, receiving high liking scores and evoking positive emotional responses, sometimes comparable to those elicited by the beef patty. In contrast, patties that did not mimic meat characteristics were generally disliked and evoked negative emotional responses. These results indicate that PB-patties lacking meat-like characteristics require significant product development to gain acceptance among meat-eating consumers. The lexicon was also applied to investigate the impact of eating scenarios created using digital-IEs, and accompanying foods, on emotional response, as well as liking, towards plant-based meatball alternatives (PB-meatballs). Serving two PB-meatballs with a well-liked sauce significantly increased both liking and positive emotional response. Additionally, consuming PB-meatballs in an appropriate home environment improved liking for one product and enhanced positive emotional responses toward both. These findings emphasised the importance of considering contextual factors in future research on PBMAs to better understand how they would perform in real-life eating situations. This research provided an emotion lexicon that researchers and food manufacturers can apply to better understand consumer emotional responses to PBMAs. It identified sensory attributes driving liking and positive emotional responses such as a strong beef flavour and juicy texture, as well as those that drive disliking and negative emotional responses including a beany flavour and pasty/doughy texture, providing a guide for improved PBMA product development. Furthermore, the research demonstrated that consumer acceptance of PBMAs can be improved when served with other meal components and consumed in a contextually appropriate environment, which has implications for how PBMAs are evaluated in the field. Notably, this research showcased the potential of digital-IEs as a tool for gaining insights into consumer responses in settings that are more representative of ‘real-life’ eating scenarios than traditional sensory testing facilities (i.e. sensory booths).
(Re)mapping women’s cosmology : transformative potentia of women’s stories : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Whanganui-a-tara/Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand
(Massey University, 2023-06-30) Wass, Thea
Binary difference is deeply rooted within the heart of European philosophy and underpins contemporary understandings of sexual difference. Forces of power relations circulate to uphold binary categories of gender that conflates man with the universal, upholding a single model of male subjectivity and inscribing meaning onto the bodies of women. In this research, I have engaged with a narrative approach to map a cosmology of ten women’s stories, connecting women’s bodies and experiences to the flow of forces that shape their lives through a complex assemblage of cultural practices. Thinking with Rosie Braidotti I have endeavoured to sketch a cartography of the multiple embedded, embodied and affective social positions constituted by forces operational in, and immanent to the production and circulation of knowledge about sexual difference. Relational ethics in feminist standpoint inquiry enabled me to attend to relational processes which contributed to the co-articulation of these stories, and to open out towards the multiple possibilities available outside established hierarchical categories of gendered subjectivities. Through this process, light is cast on the material conditions in which forces come to inscribe and inhabit women’s bodies as flows of power capable of both “entrapment (potestas) and as empowerment (potentia)” (Braidotti, 2019). This research resists phallogocentric notions of the universal by re-orienting towards the affirmative potential of women’s bodies made available through interconnectedness and ethical transformation in processes of becoming. By paying attention to the situated and affirmatively encompassing differences within and between women, bodies can be understood as a site of resistance and transformation.
Conceptualising the solitude experience of solo female travellers : exploring the interplay of aloneness, social presence, and interactions : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2023-11-30) Somasiri, Sachithra
Recent statistics in the travel and tourism industry show that the majority of the solo travel market is made up of solo female travellers (SFTs), the numbers of which are steadily increasing over time. Consequently, destination management organisations (DMOs) find SFTs as a flourishing market that creates many opportunities. In response, DMOs offer certain customised service amenities targeting SFTs, such as women-only hotels or floors. However, this research offers a deeper understanding of the multifaceted needs and experiences of SFTs in their travel discourse. Therefore, this study provides knowledge for DMOs to design more inclusive and diverse offerings when catering to this distinctive traveller segment. The existing literature is well-established in terms of the underlying needs of SFTs. Solitude is identified as one of the prime needs of SFTs and a key feature that defines present and future SFTs. Further, the various benefits of solo female travelling (for example, independence, relaxation, and self-learning) can be broadly linked with the benefits of solitude as a restorative experience. Even though existing literature identifies solitude as a need of SFTs, it is not informed about how solitude is experienced in the solo travel context. In their solo travel, SFTs encounter both solo and non-solo episodes that may shape one's solitude experience in a consumption context. Hence, the investigation of how solitude experiences of women in their solo travel discourse are shaped by their context, and the presence of and interaction with others, makes an original contribution to the literature. Focusing on the importance of solitude, this study argues that solitude as a travel need of SFTs may be influenced by the social presence of others and entail certain interpersonal dynamics (tourist-to-tourist interactions, tourist-to-service person interactions, and tourist-to-local interactions). Therefore, this research aimed to investigate how women experience and fulfil their need for solitude in their solo travel pursuits. To this end, a qualitative study was conducted. Thirty-four in-depth interviews were completed with SFTs who had travelled solo internationally. The narratives were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings emphasised the multiplicity of solitude as a travel need. Solitude was not a stand-alone experience. Instead, SFTs’ solitude experiences were multilayered, entailing differing levels of aloneness and interactions that were situational and context-bounded. SFTs found the presence of non-interactive others as a means of experiencing safe solitude. Further, the interactions within their desired levels and comfortable zones enhanced their solitude experience highlighting the possibilities of acceptable interactions within one’s solitude experience. Therefore, solitude in a bounded interactive sense can be understood in a way which is distinctive from the conventional solitude experience. On the other hand, the findings revealed certain interactive social presences of locals, other travellers, and service persons were beyond SFTs’ desires and were intrusive towards experiencing solitude. These intrusions contribute to the literature on the effects of social presence and territorial intrusions in distinctive consumption contexts. In responding towards intrusive experiences, SFTs used certain response strategies depending on the intruder. In the event of intrusions caused by locals and other travellers, SFTs mostly handled the incidents on their own. This study found complaining to be a novel response strategy of SFTs in the event of intrusive service persons, highlighting the non-complaining behaviour of SFTs with certain unique underlying reasons for suppressing complaints. Besides complaining as a novel response strategy in consumer territorial intrusion, reasons for non-complaining, also contribute to the wider literature on the complaining behaviour of solo female consumers, which could be applied in various other consumption contexts. These findings and the associated interpretations have implications for DMOs in designing solo female travelling-friendly servicescapes and offerings for women who travel with distinctive travel needs.
Dares in the virtual : the construction of social media challenges : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2023-12-30) Nazari, Victoria
Social Media Challenges (SMC), which are structured activities completed by participants with the engagement posted to social media, have resulted in injury and even death. Conceptualised as a social phenomenon, SMC involve a range of stakeholders, including participants, consumers, journalists and researchers. This article-based thesis explores how different stakeholders construct dangerous SMC and what the implications of these constructions are for participants. News reports, academic material, and YouTube comments were analysed using thematic discourse analysis grounded in a social constructionist paradigm. A qualitative systematic review and evidence synthesis was used to critically explore the existing research on dangerous SMC. The review indicates SMC to be a relatively understudied, complex, and dynamic phenomenon. Yet explanations for participation tend to be developmental, psychological, and individualistic, imposing a range of common, acontextual explanations for youth behaviour. The subsequent three analysis chapters consider constructions of risk, participants, reasons for participation, and attributions of responsibility. The referencing of SMC as ‘challenges’ and as forms of fun and entertainment are portrayed as misleading by some stakeholders. Instead, the danger involved in participation is emphasized. Dangerous SMC are constructed by most stakeholders as an undesirable youth activity demanding intervention and prevention. Risk, however, is predominantly understood as involving physical harm with emotional consequences seldom being addressed. Participants are portrayed in diverse ways; as asinine inferior specimens deserving harm, as neurologically immature, as psychologically vulnerable, or as competitive fun-seekers. Self-identified participants, in contrast, speak of forced participation and of participation utilised as a coping strategy. A range of groups are identified as responsible for addressing risk, including social media companies, parents, and participants themselves. Attempts to control participation, such as the use of age restrictions are demonstrated to be by passable. Largely absent from discourse around risky SMC are the larger structural and contextual issues, which draw attention to dynamics specific to social media platforms and the financial investment of companies in SMC proliferation. There is a silence expressed in the form of ineffective and limited interventions that externalise responsibility onto individual participants and their families.
The development of a complementary financial capability index : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy in Finance at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024-06-11) Wedlock, Meg
Achieving behaviour change only through improved financial knowledge levels is difficult when taking into account other factors which influence an individual’s decision-making such as psychological factors, financial attitudes, and socio-demographic influencers. A deeper understanding of the relationship between psychological factors and financial capability levels provides educators and policymakers valuable insights to generate progression. Psychological biases are often innate, meaning individuals are usually not aware of the influence they may have on financial decisions. Education programmes which educate individuals on psychological influences as well as improving financial knowledge may collectively generate confidence and self-efficacy in one’s decision-making abilities. Therefore, a better understanding of financial decision-making is a critical investment in the social capital of society both today and in the future. Financial capability is an important behavioural element which contributes to the development of financial wellbeing at the individual and household level, as well as improving economic stability. Consequently, financial capability remains high on the priority list for governments seeking to improve retirement wellbeing and reduce reliance on debt funding and government funded benefits, thereby improving financial stability. This research seeks to investigate the influence of psychological factors on financial decision-making, providing findings which confirm the relationship between psychological factors and financial capability levels. Within a New Zealand context, this thesis proposes a complementary financial capability index developed in support of the financial wellbeing conceptual model developed by Kempson and Poppe (2018) and to further strengthen existing behavioural finance models. The complementary financial capability index is developed using data from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, and particularly focuses on incorporating measures of time orientation, self-control, locus of control, impulsivity, social status, and action orientation. Results of this study confirm the statistical significance of psychological factors independent of financial behaviour when measuring financial capability levels. The robustness of the proposed complementary financial capability index is tested on two different datasets under variable conditions. Significant results in both applications highlight the sensitivity of the index to changes in data inputs, while also confirming the ability of the model to produce financial capability scores despite changes in data inputs. To further investigate the relationship between psychological factors and financial decision-making and to understand the factors which influence financial behaviour in practice, a mixed methods study was undertaken on fourteen participants. The collection of survey data enables further applicability testing of the complementary financial capability index while thematic analysis of the one-on-one interview transcripts results in six key behavioural finance themes which further support the research objectives addressed in this thesis and provides valuable practical insights supporting existing behavioural finance literature. This investigation confirms the significance of psychological factors on financial capability levels, over and above what may be captured by traditional factors such as financial knowledge and financial behaviour. The findings of this thesis inform policymakers and education providers on the elements of the financial decision-making process that can be targeted to generate progression in the financial capability levels and consequent financial wellbeing of New Zealanders.
Infrastructure planning emergency levels of service for the Wellington region, Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (Emergency Management) at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
(Massey University, 2024-06-07) Mowll, Richard
Past work has demonstrated that the infrastructure in the Wellington region, Aotearoa New Zealand, is vulnerable to natural hazard events such as earthquake and tsunami. To enable common understandings of the levels of service (or targets) that critical infrastructure entities are planning on delivering in an emergency event, the concept of ‘planning emergency levels of service’ (PELOS) is developed and presented in this thesis. Such a concept is readily relatable to the water sector where, for example, the World Health Organisation’s ‘basic access’ to water standard is for ’20 litres of water, per person, per day, within 1km of the dwelling’. Despite such standards for water, there are few other examples in the sectors of energy, telecommunications and transport. A literature review investigated relevant sources of information on the concept from both academic and from infrastructure sector-specific texts and was used in developing a preliminary framework of PELOS, alongside discussions with emergency management experts in the Wellington region. The overall PELOS concept and preliminary framework was then presented in interviews and workshops with key stakeholders, and qualitative data collected from these interactions was used to create an ‘operationalised’ PELOS framework. This framework was adopted by the Wellington Lifelines Group, a grouping of the critical infrastructure entities in the region. Key themes of the PELOS concept are explored, namely: interdependencies, the need to consider the vulnerabilities of some community members, emergency planning considerations, stakeholders’ willingness to collaborate and the flexibility/adaptability of the delivery of infrastructure services following a major event. Further, a description of the process taken to develop the framework is provided to enable other regions to create their own frameworks. A mapping tool, visualising where PELOS can, and cannot, be achieved based on hazard impact modelling is presented. This allows the infrastructure entities, the impacted communities and the emergency management sector to have a common understanding of the targets of response following a major hazard event, and plan for them in future.

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