The article of Lee et al. (2016) examines how spirituality and religiosity influence non-sustainable and sustainable consumer behavior. When reviewing this study, I was interested how consumer behavior can be influenced by culture. As such, I now have three variables that are subculture (Lin et al. 2017), social media marketing (Stephen, 2017; Godey et al., 2016) and membership groups (Ramya & Ali, 2016) that can impact a consumer behavior. I think that the puzzle of consumer behavior is complicated and cannot be addressed simply considering only few variables. There should be control for confounding variables, such as social class, economic performance of consumer’s country, education, religion, and other important factors.
My first hypothesis is that: the active promotion of a product or service in social media increases consumerism. This hypothesis is based on my personal observation and on the articles of Stephen and Godey et al. who found considerable evidence how social media promotion influenced the consumer buying behavior. The second hypothesis is that: an individual’s membership in a certain group of interests and subcultures increases their in-group behavior. Here, by in-group behavior, I apply Trudel’s (2019) definition that is a consumer will try to please and sustain the group, thus buying more attributes related to it. Group membership also affect an individual’s perception of marketing, so I will examine this aspect of consumer behavior. I will also address how the emergence of subcultures and groupism make people more vulnerable regarding their fashion and preferences in service and products. These hypotheses are subjected to change during my research paper due to the future readings related to the topic. Therefore, I will further analyze the existing scholarship and evaluate their findings.
References
Godey, B., Manthiou, A., Pederzoli, D., Rokka, J., Aiello, G., Donvito, R., & Singh, R. (2016). Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity and consumer behavior. Journal of Business Research, 69(12), 5833-5841.
Lee, J. D., Bahl, A., Black, G. S., Duber-Smith, D. C., & Vowles, N. S. (2016). Sustainable and non-sustainable consumer behavior in young adults. Young Consumers. 17(1), 78-93.
Lin, L., Dahl, D. W., & Argo, J. J. (2017). Refining the tightness and looseness framework with a consumer lens. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27(3), 392-397.
Ramya, N., & Ali, S. M. (2016). Factors affecting consumer buying behavior. International Journal of Applied Research, 2(10), 76-80.
Trudel, R. (2019). Sustainable consumer behavior. Consumer Psychology Review, 2(1), 85-96.
Stephen, A. T. (2016). The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer behavior. Current opiniĂłn in Psychology, 10, 17-21.