The effect of social exclusion on consumer preference for anthropomorphized brands

By R. Chen, E. Wan, E. Levy. 2017

212 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Prior research has mainly examined the effect of social exclusion on individuals' interactions with other people or on their product choices as an instrument to facilitate interpersonal connection. The current research takes a novel perspective by proposing that socially excluded consumers would be more motivated to establish a relationship with a brand (rather than using the brand to socially connect with other people) when the brand exhibits human-like features. Based on this premise, we predict and find support in three studies that socially excluded consumers, compared with non-excluded consumers, exhibit greater preference for anthropomorphized brands (studies 1–3). This effect is mediated by consumers' need for social affiliation and is moderated by the opportunity for social connection with other people (study 2). Furthermore, socially excluded consumers differ in the types of relationships they would like to build with anthropomorphized brands, depending on their attributions about the exclusion. Specifically, consumers who blame themselves (others) for being socially excluded show greater preference for anthropomorphized partner (fling) brands (study 3).

Subfields: Literature and Literary Theory, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b9841aa4bd175f612ab12e83bc25b1cf33cc018b

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In Literature and Literary Theory

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Citations in the corpus

To Err Is Human(-oid): How Do Consumers React to Robot Service Failure and Recovery? (2020, background): “For instance, social exclusion enhances preference for anthropomorphized brands (Chen, Wan, and Levy 2017), while social crowdedness diminishes such a tendency (Puzakova and Kwak 2017).”
Brands as Rivals: Consumer Pursuit of Distinctiveness and the Role of Brand Anthropomorphism (2018, background): “This is in contrast to prior work showing positive effects of anthropomorphism when consumers’ belongingness (Chen et al. 2017) or effectance (Waytz et al. 2010b) goals are salient.”
The 3 C's of anthropomorphism: Connection, comprehension, and competition (2019, background): “These effects were strongest for anthropomorphized brands positioned as stable partners rather than flaky flings, further underscoring consumers’ desire to reestablish meaningful social connections and using anthropomorphized brands to fulfill this need (Chen et al., 2017).”