Information sources and persuasion determinants among elderly consumers: a systematic review from stability to disruption
Abstract
Abstract This systematic review synthesizes more than 5 decades of research (1970–2025) on information sources and persuasion determinants among elderly consumers. It accounts for a structural discontinuity in the informational and persuasive environment of older consumers, driven by three main disruptive forces—technological advancements, societal fragmentation, and global instability—which enable identifying a pre-digital baseline (1970–2010) against which post-2010 transformations can be assessed and used as a benchmark for future research. Using PRISMA guidelines, this review identified, in marketing and consumer literature, three primary information channels (mass media, domestic relationships, and social interactions) and three key persuasion determinants (perceived image, risk perception, and sense of control), all influencing seniors’ beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Findings showed that, before the digital revolution, older consumers’ persuasion ecosystem was grounded in stability, familiarity, and interpersonal trust; whereas post-2010 disruptive forces transformed this architecture into dependency, fragmentation, and algorithmic mediation. Theoretically, innovation diffusion and self-regulation approaches explain how persuasion among older adults shifted after the digital revolution—from television centrality, restricted sources, and habitual patronage to technology-mediated manipulation, tribal capture, and crisis-driven compliance. Managerially, understanding…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a systematic review, done in people. Its evidence level is 1 of 5 (Highest · pooled evidence). Pooled evidence from several studies sits at the top of the evidence pyramid.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The neurocircuitry of addiction: an overview
- Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
- Stratified medicine for mental disorders
- The neurobiology of drug addiction: cross-species insights into the dysfunction and recovery of the prefrontal cortex
- Annual Research Review: DNA methylation as a mediator in the association between risk exposure and child and adolescent psychopathology
- Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.