Social Influence on Paranormal Beliefs

Markovsky, Barry; Thye, Shane R.

doi:10.1525/sop.2001.44.1.21

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Empirically, the concept of strength as a trans-situational has been tested a wide range of forms. For instance, the influence of personality traits on nomination behaviour (Miller and Bruiner 2008), the influence of source status on paranormal belief (Markovsky and Thye, 2001) , the influence of witness status on juror verdicts (Wolf and Bugaj, 1990) and the influence clothing worn by source on donation behaviour (Williams and Williams, 1989) . Situation-Specific strength changes according to the context within which social influence is exerted.…”

Section: Social Impact Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Social impact theory: An examination of how immediacy operates as an influence upon social media interaction in Facebook fan pages

Perez‐Vega¹,

Waite²,

O’Gorman³

2016

Mark. Rev.

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This paper proposes that Social Influence Theory is an appropriate approach for understanding social media interaction. Increasingly organisations are looking for ways to develop an effective presence in social media to increase awareness, customer satisfaction, sales and consumer engagement with the brand. The influence of interpersonal interaction upon attitude, beliefs and behaviour, has been studied within social psychology. Different forms of immediacy: physical, temporal and social are theorised as exerting distinct influences upon individual behaviours. This paper reviews the concept of social influence and introduces social impact theory (SIT) a conceptual framework to guide research enquiry and inform practice within the social media marketing. It examines in detail the concept of immediacy and indicates how an understanding of immediacy might explain Facebook behaviours

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Section: Social Impact Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Social impact theory: An examination of how immediacy operates as an influence upon social media interaction in Facebook fan pages

Perez‐Vega¹,

Waite²,

O’Gorman³

2016

Mark. Rev.

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“…Our study contributes to the literature on consumer superstitious beliefs; in particular, it regards how the purchase of products with lucky charms is influenced by the social nature of the purchase setting. Although others have investigated effects of social influence on superstitious beliefs, previous literature only focuses on how superstitious beliefs are transmitted interpersonally, for example, as a result of conformity (Markovsky and Thye, 2001). To the best of our knowledge, the current research is the first to investigate the impact of social presence on consumer purchase decisions for products that feature a lucky charm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Anticipated embarrassment due to social presence withholds consumers from purchasing products that feature a lucky charm

Wang

Oppewal

Thomas

2017

EJM

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Purpose Several studies have shown that superstitious beliefs, such as beliefs in “lucky” product attributes, influence consumer purchase behaviour. Still, little is known about how social influence, in particular mere social presence, impacts consumer superstition-related purchase decisions. Drawing on impression management theory, this paper aims to investigate the effect of social presence on consumer purchase decisions of products featuring lucky charms including the role of anticipated embarrassment as a mediator of the social presence effect. Design/methodology/approach In three studies, participants select products that feature or do not feature a lucky charm. They make these selections under varying conditions of social presence, as induced by the shopping setting in the scenario or through the use of confederates or fellow participants observing them make a real product selection. Participants are students from Australia and China. Findings The studies show that social presence makes consumers less likely to select products that feature a lucky charm. This suppressing effect is mediated by the consumers’ anticipated embarrassment. Research limitations/implications The study investigates the effect of social presence but does not investigate different parameters of social presence such as the number of people present and their familiarity. The study investigates effects for purchase settings but does not include effects of usage and neither does it look into differences across product types or lucky charm types. Practical implications Marketers should be careful to not make lucky charms too publicly salient. Online settings are more suitable than mortar-and-brick settings for selling products featuring a lucky charm. Originality/value The present research is the first to investigate consumer purchase behaviour for a product featuring a lucky charm. It is also the first to investigate the impact of social influence on superstition-based decision-making.

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“…For example, in research on processing motives, participants have typically been given a task such as solving mathematical problems with plausible or implausible alternative answers (see Holzhausen & McGlynn, 2001), or rating weak or strong messages in terms of argument quality (see Chen et al, 1996), in an effort to enhance the salience of specific motives for different participants. Similarly, research on normative influences has focused on the individual, where information is either given or withheld about another participant's opinions about an issue, thereby enhancing or reducing the salience of normative influences (Allison et al, 1990;Chen et al, 1996;Holzhausen & McGlynn, 2001;Markovsky & Thye, 2001). In such experiments, motives and influences are experimentally manipulated rather than observed and measured in naturalist settings.…”

Section: Need For An Approach To Describe Depth Of Group-level Procesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Mixed Methods Approach to Measuring Depth of Group Information Processing in the Context of Deliberative Public Involvement

Seekamp

Harris

Hall

et al. 2010

Journal of Mixed Methods Research

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This article presents a mixed methods procedure for evaluating information processing and the role of social influences in deliberative public involvement groups. Specifically, it describes an interpretive, qualitative coding scheme for analyzing group discussions to quantitatively assess how group differences in information processing and social influences affect decision judgments. To substantiate the need for this new approach, the contributions of social psychology for better understanding persuasive influences in groups and individual information processing are described in relation to participatory public involvement contexts. The approach is then described using examples from a deliberative public involvement process. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges associated with the proposed technique and suggestions for research to advance the technique and assess its contribution to mixed methods research.

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Social Influence on Paranormal Beliefs

Cited by 14 publications

References 38 publications

Social impact theory: An examination of how immediacy operates as an influence upon social media interaction in Facebook fan pages

Social impact theory: An examination of how immediacy operates as an influence upon social media interaction in Facebook fan pages

Anticipated embarrassment due to social presence withholds consumers from purchasing products that feature a lucky charm

A Mixed Methods Approach to Measuring Depth of Group Information Processing in the Context of Deliberative Public Involvement

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