Social Exclusion And Its Effect And Mechanism On Conspicuous Consumption

Human beings often encounter being excluded by others or group members in real life no matter for the reasons of one's own or others.When being excluded,on one hand,excluded individuals are more likely than included individuals to conform to the opinions of others,or they would try to gain acceptance by consuming so as to fit in with the immediate social environment.On the other hand,excluded individuals may even behave aggressively,or they would try to be different by consuming unique products.Product choice or using is an important behavior to the ones being excluded in the domain of consumer behavior.Extant researchers have analyzed the effect of social exclusion on consumers product purchasing or choice behavior,but researches on this topic are still relatively small.These researches did not specifically point the different influence of consumer's individual characteristics on their conspicuous consumption behavior,as well as the influence caused by the group entitativity.Based on the literatures on social exclusion and conspicuous consumption,this dissertation focused on consumer's implicit self-theories and group entitativity,and further analyzed the effect and mechanism of social exclusion on conspicuous consumption by using the method of experiment and survey.When being affirmed,self-protection by choosing conspicuous consumption is relieved.From the perspective of consumer's self and their group entitativity analysis and by using experiment and survey,this dissertation's conclusions are as follows:(1)Consumer's implicit self-theories can moderate the relationship between social exclusion and conspicuous consumption.Entity theorists being excluded are more likely to consume conspicuous products than those of not being excluded,while incremental theorists are not influenced by being excluded or not.Entity theorists believe that people can do nothing to chance their characteristics,and this can affect their behavior.However,entity theorists want to show their positive qualities to others,and conspicuous consumption can make them show their positive qualities.Incremental theorists concern more on their ability improvement,and conspicuous product can not improve their ability in essence,thus incremental theorists are not interested in conspicuous products.(2)Group entitativity can moderate the relationship between social exclusion and conspicuous consumption.Being excluded from high entitativity can make consumers spend more on conspicuous products.For further analysis,exclusion from high entitativity shows that individuals are not desire to keep close relationship with that high entity group,and this desire affects socially excluded consumer's conspicuous consumption.In addition,due to the weak relationship among the members in low entitativity,being excluded from this group can not affect consumers' conspicuous consumption.(3)Self-and group-affirmation can buffer the effect of conspicuous consumption caused by social exclusion.Conspicuous product can quickly improve the bad status of entity theorists being excluded,and being excluded from high entitativity also want to improve their bad situation by conspicuous consumption.From the individual perspective,affirmation to the self-integrity can lower entity theorists' conspicuous consumption.From the group entitativity perspective,affirmation to the group value can help individuals regulate their cognition to the group,if they choose to get rid of the group due to the exclusion,they may encounter some new risks(e.g.judgement to the new group,risk of inclusion),thus affirmation to the group value also lowers conspicuous consumption in the high entitativity being excluded.The above findings extend the research of social exclusion in consumer behavior domain.Compared with previous studies,the main innovations of the present dissertation are as follows:(1)This study applies implicit self-theories into the analysis of the relationship between social exclusion and consumer behavior,and extends implicit self-theories into the domain of consumer behavior.The effect of social exclusion on consumers' conspicuous consumption can be different because of the difference between entity and incremental theorists.The analysis of different characteristic can help firms make more targeted marketing strategy.(2)This study introduced group entitativity into consumer behavior research,and this extends the research of group entitativity.Social exclusion is associated with interpersonal relationships,and those being excluded may pay more attention to the group excluded them when they feel being excluded,and as a result,this can influence their consumption.This study analyzes group entitativity,and points out that group entitativity moderates the effect of social exclusion on conspicuous consumption.(3)This study enriches researches of self-and group-affirmation in the domain of consumer behavior,and explores the mechanism of the effect of social exclusion on consumers' conspicuous consumption.If social exclusion is considered as a threat to people's relationship,then self-affirmation can buffer the negative effect of this threat.Application of self-and group-affirmation can help individuals spend less on conspicuous products.Finally,according to the findings,this dissertation discusses the implications of its marketing practice,points out research limitations and indicates the possible future research.