Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Accidental Similarity On College Students' Advice Taking

As a hot topic of behavior decision making,advice taking has been paid much attention by researchers.In recent years,most of the discussion on the antecedent variables affecting advice taking has focused on four aspects: recommendation characteristics,task characteristics,decision-maker characteristics and proponents characteristics.From the perspective of the characteristics of the proponents,the similarity between the proponents and the decision-makers can increase the persuasive behavior.However,the impact of incidental similarity on advice taking and its mechanism have not been thoroughly explored.From the perspective of the characteristics of decision makers,the cognition of decision makers will also have an impact on advice taking.In addition,previous studies on the influence of cognitive factors on advice taking mainly focus on cognitive style,cognitive complexity and other aspects,while cognitive closure as a cognitive motivation will also have an impact on decision-making.Therefore,it is necessary to explore the influence mechanism of the incidental similarity on advice taking,that is,the mediating effect of the sense of relevance and the moderating effect of need for cognitive closure.In addition,based on the divergence of previous studies on the role of incidental similarity,this study also discusses the boundary conditions of the positive influence of incidental similarity on advice taking,that is,how the incidental similarity will affect the individual's advice taking when it occurs in the field of inherent attributes and the field of external objects.In this study,the classic judge-advisor system was adopted.Through two studies and four experiments,E-prime program was used to edit the quantity estimation task,and the influence mechanism of incidental similarity on advice taking in the field of inherent attributes and external objects.Study 1 includes experiment 1 and experiment 2.Experiment 1 uses students in school as subjects(N=55)and experiment 2 also uses students in school as subjects(N=117)to explore the influence mechanism of incidental similarity of inherent attributes on advice taking,and verifies the mediating effect of sense of relevance and the moderating effect of need for cognitive closure.Study 2 included pre-experiment,experiment 3 and experiment 4.The pre-experiment screened the status symbol products by issuing questionnaires.In experiment 3,students were selected as subjects(N=86),and in experiment 4,students were also selected as subjects(N=114),to explore the influence mechanism of incidental similarity of external objects on advice taking,and to verify the mediating effect of sense of relevance and the moderating effect of need for cognitive closure.The study reached the following conclusions:(1)Incidental similarity of inherent attributes will increase the degree of individual advice taking.(2)The sense of relevance plays a mediating role in the impact of incidental similarity of inherent attributes on advice taking.(3)Need for cognitive closure plays a moderating role in the impact of incidental similarity of inherent attributes on advice taking,the higher the need for cognitive closure,the stronger the positive effect of incidental similarity on advice taking.(4)In the field of external objects,incidental similarity of status symbol products will reduce the degree of individual advice taking;incidental similarity of non-status symbol products can increase the level of individual advice taking.(5)The sense of relevance plays an mediating role in the influence of incidental similarity of external objects on advice taking.(6)Need for cognitive closure plays a moderating role in the influence of incidental similarity of external objects on advice taking,the higher the need for cognitive closure,the lower the negative impact of incidental similarity of status symbol products on the advice taking;and it will enhance the positive effect of incidental similarity of nonstatus symbol products on advice taking.