온라인 쇼핑 환경에서 사회적 규범을 활용한 마케팅이 소비자의 구매의도에 미치는 영향 - 사회적 지지 수준, 지지집단 유사성 및 자아해석을 중심으로 -

초록

“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”(Eric Hoffer) People are social animals and are sensitive to social impacts. Accordingly, many corporations carry out social norms marketing. Social norms marketing refers to marketing techniques designed to alter consumers’ perceptions about which behaviors are desirable in their community. Social norms marketing is especially utilized in the online shopping environment. Nevertheless, prior researches have not considered the significant influence of social norms marketing in the online shopping environment. Further, prior researches have usually suggested that the level of social support in social norms marketing has positive impacts on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions. However, they have not considered the type of support groups and the target of social norms marketing. This research investigated the moderating roles of group similarity and self-construal on the impact of social support level on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions. Self-construal refers to an individual’s view of the self or structure of self-schema and reflects the relation between the self and others in society. Individuals who have an independent self tend to primarily think and behave by reference to their own internal thoughts. They place high value on the separateness and uniqueness of the individual. Conversely, individuals who have an interdependent self tend to primarily think and behave by reference to thoughts of others. They place high value on the connectedness and relationships with others. Self-construal influences individual judgments and behaviors. In particular, self-construal influences individual judgments of social norms. Consumers with an independent self have goals related to independence (i.e., self-determination) and differentiation (i.e., distinctiveness). Prior research shows that when the focus is on comparison to an in-group, such as a high-similarity group, the independence aspect of the self is emphasized. For consumers with an independent self, comparison to the in-group leads to a heightened need for self-determination and accuracy. Thus, the higher the level of social support, which means the accuracy of information, the more positive consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions are. However, when the focus is on comparison to an out-group, such as a low-similarity group, the differentiation aspect of the self is emphasized. For consumers with an independent self, comparison to the out-group leads to a heightened need to differentiate themselves from the out-group. Thus, the lower the level of social support, which means the social norms, the more positive consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions are. On the other hand, consumers with an interdependent self have goals that focus on self shared with others and the maintenance of relationships. Thus, when the focus is on comparison to an in-group, such as a high-similarity group, consumers with an interdependent self have more positive attitudes and purchase intentions in high social support condition, which means strong social norms, than in low social support condition. However, they are more immune to the out-group, as their primary motivation stems from forming relationships within the in-group. Therefore, when the focus is on comparison to an out-group, such as low-similarity group, level of social support has no impact on the attitudes and purchase intentions of consumers with an interdependent self. This study investigated the impact of three critical factors on product attitude and purchase intention in an online shopping context (internet bookstore): social support level, group similarity, and self-construal. Using a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subject factorial design on product attitude, we found main effects among these factors (see Table 1). Consumers’ product attitudes were more positive when level of social support was high (M = 4.55) than when level of social support was low (M = 4.13; F = 4.971, p < .05). In addition, Consumers’ product attitudes were more positive when group similarity was high (M = 4.67) than when group similarity was low (M = 4.04; F = 9.567, p < .05). Further, consumers with independent self (M = 4.52) had more positive product attitude than consumers with interdependent self (M = 4.17; F = 3.882, p < .05). More importantly, the social support level x group similarity x self-construal interaction was significant (F = 8.438, p < .01). Planned contrasts supported our hypotheses (see Figure 1). When group similarity was high, consumers with independent self had more positive product attitudes in the high social support condition (M = 5.54) than in the low social support condition (M = 4.00; F = 17.092, p < .001). Consumers with interdependent self also had more positive product attitudes in the high social support condition (M = 5.05) than in the low social support condition (M = 3.95; F = 9.256, p < .01). On the other hand, when group similarity was low, consumers with independent self had more positive product attitudes in the low social support condition (M = 4.93) than in the high social support condition (M = 3.60; F = 14.522, p < .001). However, for consumers with interdependent self, level of social support had no impact on product attitudes (high social support: 3.99 vs. low social support: 3.73; F = .869, p > .1). The results of a 2 (social support level) x 2 (group similarity) x 2 (self-construal) ANCOVA on purchase intention yielded a significant main effect for social support level (F = 4.491, p < .05)(see Table 2). Purchase intentions were higher when level of social support is high (M = 4.32) than level of social support is low (M = 3.88). More importantly, a three-way interaction was significant (F = 12.451, p< .001). Purchase intentions of consumers with interdependent self were also higher in the high social support condition (M = 4.76) than in the low social support condition (M = 3.84; F = 4.840, p < .05). On the other hand, as our predictions, when group similarity was low, purchase intentions of consumers with independent self were higher in the low social support condition (M = 5.02) rather than in the high social support condition (M = 3.57; F = 13.619, p < .001). However, for consumers with interdependent self, level of social support had no impact on the their purchase intentions (high social support: 3.94 vs. low social support: 3.40; F = 3.056, p > .05). Finally, we conducted mediation analyses (Baron and Kenny 1986, Preacher and Hayes 2008) to verify a mediating role of product attitude. A three-way interaction index (social support level x group similarity x self-construal) emerged as a predictor of product attitude (β = -.259, t = -3.482, p < .01) and purchase intention (β = -.203, t = -2.710, p< .01). These analyses suggest complete mediation of the effects of the three-way interaction index on purchase intention by product attitude (Sobel test-statistic = -3.37, p < .001). In addition, we tested the mediation using the bootstrapping technique (Preacher and Hayes 2008) with 10,000 resamples. Our results showed that product attitude mediated the three-way interaction effect on purchase intention (a = -.16, b = .79, a x b = -.12, 95% CI: -.1937 ∼ -.0620). The results of this study show that the impact of social support level varied with type of support group and consumers’ self-construal. Furthermore, this study provides practical implications to management for improving efficiency and effectiveness of social norms marketing.

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