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INTEREST CATEGORY: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
POSTING TYPE: Calls: Journals

Posted by: Andrea Vocino

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Dear Colleagues,

We invite submissions to a Special Issue of Psychology & Marketing  on the following theme:

Trust, Authenticity, and Consumer Agency in AI-Mediated Omnichannel and Phygital Experiences

Guest Editors: Andrea Vocino (Deakin University) Marta Massi (Athabasca University) and Sandro Castaldo (Università Bocconi)

OVERVIEW

The proliferation of AI-driven technologies across omnichannel and phygital retail environments raises fundamental questions about how consumers experience, interpret, and respond to algorithmically mediated interactions. This Special Issue seeks theoretically grounded and empirically rigorous work that advances understanding of trust, authenticity, and consumer agency in these emerging contexts.

TOPICS OF INTEREST include, but are not restricted to:

• Trust formation, calibration, repair, and withdrawal in AI-mediated consumer-brand interactions across channels and touchpoints.
• Consumer judgments of authenticity in AI-generated content, recommendations, service encounters, and brand communications.
• Trust transfer between human employees, algorithmic agents, platforms, and brands in omnichannel and phygital journeys.
• Consumer agency, autonomy, control, and reactance in algorithmically curated or automated marketing environments.
• Psychological and design cues (e.g., disclosure, explainability, transparency, anthropomorphism) that affect trust and authenticity perceptions.
• Comparative consumer responses to human, AI, and hybrid service provision in retail, hospitality, health, education, and luxury contexts.
• Mechanisms of resistance, acceptance, and adaptation to AI across different risk levels, involvement levels, and product categories.
• Cross-cultural, generational, and demographic differences in responses to AI-mediated marketing and phygital experiences.
• Measurement development and validation for trust, authenticity, agency, and related constructs in AI-enabled consumer settings.
• Conceptual integrations linking consumer psychology, service systems, and digital platform research in AI-mediated markets.

We welcome a range of theoretical perspectives and empirical methodologies, including experimental, survey-based, qualitative, computational, and mixed-methods approaches.

KEY INFORMATION

Submission Deadline: 31 January 2027 Journal: Psychology & Marketing (Wiley) Full Call for Papers:

Submissions should follow the author guidelines of Psychology & Marketing and be submitted directly through the journal’s ScholarOne portal, selecting the Special Issue designation at submission.

We encourage you to share this call with colleagues and doctoral students whose work intersects with consumer psychology, digital marketing, and AI. Enquiries may be directed to the guest editors.

With best wishes,

Andrea Vocino, Associate Professor of Marketing (Deakin University)
Marta Massi, Associate Professor (Athabasca University)
Sandro Castaldo, Professor of Marketing (Università Bocconi)