A Literature Review on Research Topic Clusters, Methodological Evolution, and Thematic Shifts in Consumer Behavior Studies from 2020 to 2025

This article examines the structural turn in consumer behaviour research from 2020 to 2025 in the context of exogenous shocks and accelerating digitalisation. It argues that consumer decision making has shifted from choices grounded in relatively stable preferences to dynamic adjustment shaped jointly by shocks, platform technologies, and governance rules. This shift makes it necessary to synthesise a rapidly expanding yet difficult to cumulate body of knowledge through a systematic review. Guided by a topic clustering approach, the review identifies seven major research streams in the past five years: (1) Risk and adaptation in crisis and pandemic contexts. (2) Multi touchpoint journeys, experience management, and personalisation mechanisms. (3) AI and algorithm driven human machine interaction, including acceptance and resistance. (4) The effects of socialised content such as livestreaming and short videos on trust and conversion. (5) The influence of immersive technologies such as augmented reality on decision making and purchase intention. (6) Mechanisms of sustainable consumption and circular economy adoption. (7) Governance and intervention pathways addressing consumer wellbeing and the risks of digital manipulation. The review further highlights three core limitations: a lack of interoperable conceptual interfaces across theoretical chains, an overreliance on cross-sectional correlational designs with insufficient causal identification and temporal dynamic evidence. And an underdeveloped explanation of the institutionalisation process from shock to normality, population heterogeneity, and the consequential linking purchase, resistance, exit, and wellbeing outcomes. Building on these gaps, future research should take two core actions. First, it should treat information structures and governance structures as upstream variables to integrate mechanisms across streams, and strengthen evidence bases through longitudinal data, observed behavioural data, and quasi-natural experiments. Second, it should incorporate consumer protection and wellbeing assessment into an overarching explanatory framework for platform-mediated consumption environments. These steps will improve the theoretical cumulativeness and policy relevance of subsequent studies.