| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 管理學院碩士在職專班國際經貿組 === 92 === “Consumer Conformity” is an emerging topic in consumer behavior research with arising interests. Social psychologists first studied conformity using mostly experiments and generated many impressive results. An individual is more likely to conform to referent groups or significant others in order to gain group acceptance and rewards, or to avoid punishment. Conformity differs in two ways; Public Compliance means an individual only changes his thinking and behavior in public face-to-face situation under group pressure. Private Acceptance represents an individual’s internal transformation of his thinking as well as his behavior in accordance with the referent groups or significant others.
This research examines the “Attention-to-Social-Comparison-Information” measure, one construct generating conformity, as an individual factor influencing conformity in product visibility and branded (or non-branded) products. Clothes and underwear are selected to represent the extremes of product visibility in the clothes category. The researcher defined Branded (or non-branded) products, using the daily-spoken name to symbolize its generic meaning. “Branded” products represent those brands that are well-known and easily-recognized among general public with unique style and image; meanwhile, it is relatively highly-priced, differed from low-priced non-branded products.
638 self-administered questionnaires are collected through a convenience sample approach. Independent t test is practiced in order to test the significance among high and low ATSCI subjects. The result shows that conformity is relatively higher among high ATSCI subjects concerning product visibility. High ATSCI subjects also tend to have favorable intention in buying branded clothes and underwear, compared to low ATSCI subjects. Female and male do not differentiate in their ATSCI scores as is consistent with past gender-conformity research. However, compared to male subjects, females tend to conform higher in their intentions in buying underwear. No gender differences in clothes buying intentions were found.
This research shows evidences that product visibility and branded products (vs. non-branded products) greatly influence consumer conformity. Suggestions are as the follows: Firstly, for low-visible products, group norms could be taken advantage of, in order to persuade consumers to conform to the group decision in buying certain products. On the other hand, referent groups can provide valuable information in buying low-visible products and thus create consumer conformity through informational influence. Secondly, brand is the future. Make products branded ones. Brand is not only an image rooted in consumers’ minds and hearts, but also a diamond symbol in accordance with efforts and progresses in business.
Consumer conformity is still in need of exploration through different topics and fields. Furthermore, it requires marketing practice and implementation in the real world.
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