사회적 배제 경험이 타인과 동일한 제품을 소비하는 상황에 대한 소비자의 반응에 미치는 영향

초록

Consumers living in the era of mass production inevitably face the situation where somebody else is consuming the exact same product as theirs. The current research focused on consumers’ reaction to such situations and tested the hypothesis that social exclusion causes consumers to respond differently to those situations. Study 1 found that relative to socially included participants, socially excluded participants responded negatively to them being intentionally mimicked by others. Study 2 extended Study 1 in three aspects. First, it dealt with the situation where others happened to consume the same product as participants. Second, it measured consumers’ response to the situation via their evaluation of the said product. Third, to investigate the possibility of product type interacting with consumers’ response to such situation, it included symbolic product as well as practical product. The results revealed a three-way interaction among social exclusion, the number of others consuming the same product, and the type of product. As for the practical product, both socially excluded and socially included participants evaluated their product more positively when the same product was consumed by majority than by minority. As for the symbolic product, socially excluded participants evaluated their product more positively when the same product was consumed by minority than by majority. However, socially included participants evaluated their product similarly irrespective of whether the product was consumed by minority or majority.

키워드