social influence

Main Topic or Phenomenon This paper addresses the growing availability of digital text data generated by consumers and provides a comprehensive methodology for incorporating automated text analysis into consumer research. The authors focus on developing systematic approaches to analyze consumer-generated content like reviews, social media posts, blogs, and online discussions to understand consumer attitudes, interactions, and culture.

Main Topic or Phenomenon This paper examines the counterintuitive effects of increasing material equality on conspicuous consumption among bottom-tier consumers. The research challenges the conventional wisdom that greater equality in income or possessions necessarily reduces consumption among those at the bottom of the distribution.

Main Topic or Phenomenon This paper examines how social class influences donation allocation preferences when consumers must choose between multiple charitable causes. Specifically, it investigates whether and why lower-class and higher-class consumers differ in their preferences for donating to “urgent” causes (addressing basic survival needs like food, shelter, safety) versus “non-urgent” causes (addressing development needs like cultural activities, sports).

Main Topic or Phenomenon This paper addresses the limitations of traditional sentiment analysis in consumer research, which typically relies on simple positive/negative word counts. The authors argue that consumers use a much richer array of explicit and implicit linguistic features to express sentiment in online reviews and social media, and that understanding these nuances is crucial for predicting consumer behavior and sales outcomes.

Paper: “You Are What They Eat: The Influence of Reference Groups on Consumers’ Connections to Brands,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13 (3), 339–48. Main Topic or Phenomenon This paper examines how reference group brand usage influences consumers’ self-brand connections - the psychological bonds consumers form with brands as they incorporate them into their self-concept.

Paper: “Brand Community,” Journal of Consumer Research, 27 (4), 412–32. Main Topic or Phenomenon This paper introduces and explores the concept of “brand community” - specialized, non-geographically bound communities that form around brands, based on structured social relationships among brand admirers.

Paper: “Together We Rise: How Social Movements Succeed,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31 (1), 112–45. Main Topic or Phenomenon This paper examines how social movements succeed in creating social change, with a specific focus on understanding the psychological processes that motivate people to transform from bystanders to “upstanders” - those who provide grassroots momentum for successful social movements.

Paper: “Reference Group Influence on Product and Brand Purchase Decisions,” Journal of Consumer Research, 9 (2), 183–94. Main Topic or Phenomenon This paper examines how reference groups influence consumer purchase decisions, specifically investigating whether the type of influence varies systematically across different product categories based on two key dimensions of product conspicuousness: public vs.