This paper presents a qualitative study of Reddit comment data, investigating how individuals leverage consumption to protect themselves from criminal threats. Our analysis finds that people consume to serve three strategic functional categories of protective consumption behaviors: threat-detecting, vulnerability-reducing and severity-reducing strategies. Within these overarching strategies, our analysis of the field data also supports consumers’ use of four particular tactical functions: withdrawal, deterrence, resistance, and recovery. We leverage protection motivation theory as an enabling lens to analyze the data; in doing so, we offer contributions to the theory as well. We discuss these strategies/tactics by introducing what we term the Crime-Protective Consumption Framework. A deeper understanding of how consumers derive value from consumption activities to protect themselves, others, and their property from crime can help guide new product development and marketing messages, and more broadly, illuminate how criminal hazards influence consumer decision-making.

Accepted Oral Presentation