Making danger desirable: Constructed risk in experiential consumption

Abstract

Research on experiential consumption and high-thrill leisure has largely conceptualized risk as an individual-level psychological perception, captured through constructs such as perceived risk (Bauer, 1960), sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 1979), or emotional arousal (Berlyne, 1960). While this perspective has advanced understanding of consumer responses to extreme experiences, it implicitly treats risk as an external attribute that consumers merely evaluate. This paper argues that such an approach overlooks a fundamental theoretical question: how risk becomes meaningful, desirable, and socially legitimate within marketed experiences. Drawing on insights from experiential consumption (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982) and consumer culture theory (Arnould & Thompson, 2005), we introduce the concept of “constructed risk”. Constructed risk refers to the meso-level outcome of organizational and market-mediated processes through which danger is symbolically produced and normalized prior to individual perception. By repositioning risk as an outcome rather than an antecedent of marketing processes, this framework explains why experiences with minimal objective hazard can be experienced as extreme, while objectively risky activities may fail to generate experiential intensity. The paper advances marketing theory by linking organizational practices, cultural norms, and individual experiential responses through an original conceptual model.