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Social and psychological variability in consumer communication networks
Abstract
This study examined the sociometric characteristics of consumers' interpersonal communication networks and the effects of market characteristics, consumer perceptions, psychological traits, and social tendencies on those networks. It was hypothesized that consumers' communication networks would vary with the market breadth of the product/service under investigation. For services of wider (versus narrower) market breadth, networks were hypothesized to be larger in size and characterized by stronger and more homophilous ties. Sociometric properties were also expected to vary with consumers' independence in decision making and tendencies toward social affiliation. Other hypotheses theorized about the relationship between perceived risk and the qualification and safety credibility of the activated tie. Survey data obtained from personal interviews with customers of four services was used to test these hypotheses. As expected, consumers communication networks for services of wider (versus narrower) market breadth are characterized by stronger and more homophilous ties and have greater overlap with consumers' primary social networks. Contrary to expectations, however, networks for services of narrower market breadth tend to be larger than those for services of wider market breadth. While tie strength and homophily are not related to network density, as expected, stronger and more homophilous ties are more apt to be multiplex ties. That is, more closely linked and more similar network members are more apt to discuss multiple products/services. As theorized, network size and homophily are inversely related to consumers' independent judgment making, but the expected positive relationships between consumers' role accumulation and these sociometric properties are not present. In addition, contrary to expectations, consumers with more roles have networks with stronger ties. The hypothesized relationships between perceived (performance and psychosocial) risk and source characteristics (qualification and safety credibility, tie strength, and homophily) are not present. Furthermore, the safety credibility of the ties is unrelated to consumers' independent judgment making.
Subject Area
Marketing
Recommended Citation
Anglin, Linda K, "Social and psychological variability in consumer communication networks" (1990). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9019551.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9019551