Do I Deserve to Spend? Online Social Support and Spending Pleasure

Abstract

Despite evidence of people posting their consumption experiences to online social networks to fulfill the needs of social support, an understanding of how online social support affects post-consumption spending behaviors remains elusive. This research aims to examine how online social support from online social network friends and the firm influence perceptions of self-deservingness and spending pleasure. Across two studies, this research provides evidence that social support gained through online social networks influences consumers’ spending pleasure through perceptions of their own deservingness. Notably, this study reveals that people obtain social support in online social networks from two sources: social networks friends and firms through receiving “Likes” and “Comments” on their post. This study also explores boundary conditions for when online social support is more effective on spending pleasure. The findings not only broaden the social support literature but also address the benefit to the service industry by understanding how social support can enhance spending pleasure.

Keywords

online social networks online social support self-deservingness spending pleasure tie strength

Introduction

With the increased use of the internet, online communication is an integral part of people’s everyday lives (Deters et al., 2016). This is especially prevalent in online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, which have rapidly gained prominence as venues of communication. The practice of taking and posting photos of travel and restaurant experiences is a global phenomenon where food hashtags are used more than 250 million times per month (Zhu et al., 2019). Seventy-two percent of customers use Facebook to make restaurant decisions based on the comments and image shared by others (Review Trackers, 2019), so posting about hospitality and tourism experiences provides large amount of customer information that is critical for marketers and practitioners.

Furthermore, online social networks have altered the nature of social communication dramatically especially for the hospitality and tourism industry given how frequently individuals post about food and tourism experiences. More than 60% of travelers share their travel photos to social media (Karr, 2018) such as visiting luxury resorts and restaurants by using check-in or tagging functions. Compared to traditional face-to-face interactions, online social networks allow individuals to craft their ideal self-image by selectively displaying positive and appealing aspects of one’s self, and consequently, online social networks provide an appropriate environment for implementing a self-presentation strategy (Walther et al., 2009).

One of the underlying motivations for self-presentation is related to social acceptance (Slama & Wolfe, 1999). Individuals want to obtain social acceptance and focus their communication functions and activities toward the goal of seeking social support (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). As consumption is an effective way to communicate one’s desired identity by conveying the image and symbol of one’s possessions, online social networks work as an effective medium to implement self-presentation strategies in regard to their consumption behavior (Howe & Strauss, 2009). That being said, people specifically show off their consumption experiences through social media posts with the expectation that other’s view and react to their posts. Obtaining online attention and support from others explains why people engage in self-presentation of their consumption behavior. Although online social networks provide an ideal outlet to receive social support (Valenzuela et al., 2009), and consumers use these channels to fulfill their needs of obtaining attention and support from others, no study to date has examined in what form and how such online social support influences consumer consumption behavior (C. Zhang et al., 2017). This is especially important for businesses as providing social support of online posts also represents an enhanced opportunity for customer engagement (Gruss et al., 2020) and posts with a tagged location get 79% more engagement (Karr, 2018). The importance of this research is further supported by the fact that many firms are investing in digital marketing strategies to enhance the customer experience and engagement (Gruss et al., 2020).

Furthermore, consumers enjoy their indulgence more when they can better justify their consumption (Okada, 2005). As a way to justify the acceptability of their consumption, consumers pursue information that enables them to behave in the way they intended (Kivetz & Simonson, 2002). As a part of such information, social support from others plays an important role (Simonson, 1989). When people feel they are supported and valued by others, it heightens perceived self-deservingness by focusing feelings of self-worth (Wood et al., 2009). An increase in self-deservingness may increase one’s spending pleasure as it helps to justify consumption. The monetary value of a Facebook “like” to a business is considerable (Gruss et al., 2020) so this is vital for businesses and marketers to consider as increasing consumer’s spending pleasure leads to future revisit intentions and willingness to pay more (Prelec & Simester, 2001). As social support from others justifies consumption and enhances self-deservingness, there is a need to understand the role of online social support on post-consumption behavior.

From a social support perspective, online social networks provide an ideal form of social support. It is easy to become friends with other users, facilitates connections with varied degrees of closeness ranging from close friends to essential strangers, and serves as a channel for gaining attention and support from different levels of relationship tie-strength (Frison & Eggermont, 2015). In addition to social support from friends, service firms should also support customer posts. Surprisingly, 75% of small firms do not respond to any online posts (Herzlick, 2019) and large firms primarily focus on responding to negative reviews (Sparks & Bradley, 2017). This is especially damaging as boutique hotels and independent restaurants are a significant portion of the industry. Research that examines firm support from consumption and positive posts is limited and needed. Service providers should pay the utmost attention to online posts as research finds that firms who respond and support customer reviews perform better and improve ratings (J. M. Kim et al., 2020; Proserpio & Zervas, 2017). Therefore, the result of this study provides important implications to hospitality firms in supporting positive posts as it relates to consumption behavior.

In summary, despite evidence of consumers posting their consumption experiences to online social networks to fulfill the needs of obtaining social support, a systemic understanding of how online social support affects post-consumption behaviors especially related to spending remains elusive. In addition, questions regarding in what form and from whom customers receive online social support are unanswered. Therefore, this research aims to discuss the potential sources of social support, the unique communication function of online social networks, and how they enhance users’ perceived social support and consumer’s post-consumption behavior. To do so, this research examines the impact of online social support on spending pleasure and the underlying mechanism that explains the link by examining the mediating role of self-deservingness. As online social support can come from both online network friends and the firm, this study incorporates the influence of both. In addition, this research explores the boundary conditions for when online social support is more effective on spending pleasure by incorporating relational and situational factors.

Literature Review

Online Social Support and Online Social Networks

As online social networks continue to grow, their communication is now a fundamental part of individual’s everyday experiences (Scissors et al., 2016) and an imperative channel for facilitating social support (Liang et al., 2011). Social support refers to the perception or experience that one is loved and cared for, esteemed, and valued through social interaction (Wills, 1991). Early online social support research focuses on coping with major life events through online support groups (Wright & Bell, 2003). Today, the process and impact of how people use online social networks to obtain social support is more diverse (Frison & Eggermont, 2015). Among various online social networks, Facebook is the largest with more than 1.2 billion daily active users. Two-thirds of Facebook users report higher levels of social and emotional support compared with other internet users (Pew internet Report, 2014). Furthermore, Facebook provides unique communication tools for users to easily demonstrate social support: (a) one-click communication “Like” and (b) personalized communication via the “Comment” (Burke & Kraut, 2013).

A Like is a simple way to give positive feedback (Scissors et al., 2016) and signals a positive response to the status update (Deters et al., 2016) such as agreement, support, and friendliness. The meaning of a Like is similar meaning to non-verbal face-to-face communication such as smiles and nods (Deters et al., 2016). As a non-verbal cue, a Like can serve as a virtual empathy tool that delivers emotional support (Scissors et al., 2016) serving as a cue of social acceptance and emotional support. A Comment signifies recognition of the post as well as the effort to make a written response, symbolizing that the post deserved richer positive feedback (Burke & Kraut, 2013). Accordingly, receiving a Comment is related to improvements in perceived social support and relationship strength. Also, the number of Likes and Comments received on a status update serve as objective measures of social support (Deters et al., 2016).

In summary, Likes and Comments can be viewed as visible indicators of engagement and support (Gruss et al., 2020; Tajvidi et al., 2020). The more attention people receive for their self-presentation, the more likely they are to feel that they are acquiring social support from their networks. Applying this logic to Facebook feedback tools, the degree to which one feels perceived support depends on the number of Likes and Comments they receive.

Online Social Support and Self-Deservingness

Deservingness is a judgment related to outcomes earned because of a person’s actions, quality (Feather, 1999), or merit (Lerner, 1975). It is associated with a rationale for why someone is worthy of a particular treatment or outcome (Cavanaugh, 2014) and by how much they think they are valued by others (Wood et al., 2009). Being accepted and valued in a social relationship is an important contributor to a person’s feeling of self-worth (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Cavanaugh (2014) finds that reminding consumers of their valued social relationships affects their perceived deservingness. Consequently, receiving support from others may heighten perceived deservingness by feeling valued by others. In online social networks, interpersonal feedback is often publicly available to all friends and such public evaluations are likely to affect ones’ evaluation of self-worth (Harter, 1999). Valkenburg et al. (2006) reveal that the frequency of reactions received from friends positively influences self-worthiness and enhances social self-esteem. Extending this logic, online social support, in the form of Likes and Comments, will influence perceptions of self-deservingness.

Furthermore, according to licensing effect, increased confidence in one’s self-image decreases worry and supports the guilt-reduction mechanism (Khan & Dhar, 2006). In a consumption context, licensing effect provides a boost in the relevant self-concept, which diminishes the negative self-attributions associated with indulgent consumption behavior. Applying this logic, feeling deserving may license individuals to indulge more and increase their pleasure. In other words, perceived self-deservingness coming from a sense of achievement may make it easier to justify their consumption behavior, and eventually, it will enhance one’s spending pleasure.

Hypothesis 1 (H1): Online social support will positively influence self-deservingness.

Social Support and Spending Pleasure

The degree to which consumers feel consumption pleasure depends on how much they can justify their consumptions, especially when it is not a necessity (Okada, 2005). This is especially important in hospitality and tourism contexts as these purchase decisions are often hedonic and voluntary. Previous research reveals that consumers engage in various methods to justify their consumption behavior (Kivetz & Simonson, 2002) and one significant way is through pursuing information which justifies their behavior (Simonson, 1989). Social influence theory (Kelman, 1958) states that people build their own opinion on the basis of the group’s consensus. Consequently, obtaining social support may affect individuals by justifying their behaviors and mitigating inner conflict (Xu & Schwarz, 2009). Raghunathan and Corfman (2006) reveal that hedonic enjoyment is boosted when other people provide positive judgments about the shared stimuli. In other words, if people perceive that they are gaining other’s social approval for their consumption, their enjoyment increases. Applying this logic, when consumers obtain other’s social support of their consumption behavior, the social support acts as a justification tool which ultimately increases their spending pleasure.

Hypothesis 2 (H2): Online social support will positively influence spending pleasure.

Hypothesis 3 (H3): Perceived self-deservingness will mediate the relationship between online social support and spending pleasure.

Sources of Online Social Support: Peer Social Support

Tie strength

Facebook users’ social networks are diverse and range from actual close friends to virtual strangers (Vitak et al., 2011). Accordingly, Facebook serves as an ideal channel to examine the impact of social support from varying degrees of tie strength. Tie strength refers to the potency of the relational bonds (Granovetter, 1973). The majority of social influence studies use relatively simple proxies for the tie strength. Therefore, we expand the conceptualization of tie strength to capture several different dimensions of relationship strength in online social networks: relationship length, frequency, and closeness. Granovetter (1973) characterizes two types of ties: strong ties which are typically family and friends with whom people share a personal connection and weak ties which are merely acquaintances with whom people have a more distant relationship. Consequently, strong ties are closer social relationships that are more emotionally close, reciprocal, and frequent than weak ties (Granovetter, 1973).

Then, how does the tie strength of social support effect one’s perceived self-deservingness? Early work into social support predicts that strong relational ties are more effective at providing support than weak ties and people tend to believe that strong ties convey more trustful and credible information (Coleman, 1988). Accordingly, individuals pay more attention to the feedback they receive from strong ties. In addition, research demonstrates that people are more susceptible to attitude change when the information is provided by people with whom they closely identify (Abrams & Hogg, 1990). As strong ties represent people who share similar values, tastes, and interests (Granovetter, 1973), individuals are susceptible to social support coming from strong ties than weak ties. People pay more attention presenting a positive self-view to strong ties and feel better about themselves when they receive positive feedback from strong ties rather than weak ties (Wilcox & Stephen, 2013). In other words, individuals who obtain social support from strong ties compared to weak ties are more likely to feel deserving and accordingly, feel pleasure with spending.

Hypothesis 4-1 (H4-1): When high level of peer social support is provided, people will be more likely to feel (a) self-deservingness and (b) pleasure of spending from strong ties than weak ties.

Hypothesis 4-2 (H4-2): When low level of peer social support is provided, people will be more likely to feel (a) self-deservingness and (b) pleasure of spending from weak ties and strong ties.

Sources of Online Social Support: Firm Social Support

Online social networks provide a public communication channel for a three-way interaction and engagement between customers, firm, and other customers. Previous research largely focuses on firms responding to negative reviews as negative reviews have greater impact than positive reviews (Rose & Blodgett, 2016) and negative reviews offer the opportunity for service recovery (Baker, 2017). However, responding and supporting positive reviews can also be important for practitioners, but has received less empirical attention. Making an immediate response to a customer post indicates that firms are monitoring their customer’s experiences and care about their opinions (Wei et al., 2013; L. Zhang et al., 2020). Xie et al. (2014) reveal that management responses in a positive consumer review signify that hotel managers are listening to their customers and expressing appreciation. Accordingly, responding to customers’ posts may signal a good interaction between firm and customers, leading customers to feel that they are being cared for and valued by the firm and derive feelings of social support.

Relationship strength with firm

Relationship strength describes the extent, degree, or magnitude of association between a customer and service provider (Shemwell & Cronin, 1995). There are two objective variables associated with relationship strength: contact frequency and relationship duration (Dagger et al., 2009). This research posits that the role of relationship between the customer and the firm is built upon past experience with the firm can add great value in explaining the impact of firm social support on spending pleasure, as these exchange characteristics are found to be influential in predicting consumer behavior (Mittal & Katrichis, 2000).

This is grounded in reciprocity theory which is defined as the giving of benefits to another in return for benefits received which is one of the defining features of social exchange (Molm, 2010). Customers who have strong relationship strength with the firm believe that they have put in more investment to build a relationship with the firm (Y. S. Kim & Baker, 2020). As such, strong relationship customers generate higher expectations about the service they think they deserve and expect reciprocity from the firm in the form of favorable treatment (Grégoire et al., 2009). In other words, these customers may believe that firms are more obligated to them than weak relationship customers. Previous research finds that when a service interaction is perceived as a transgression of their relational norms, then strong relationship customers are more likely to respond more negatively to the firm (Grégoire et al., 2009). As a consequence, the absence of firm social support may result in feelings of violation of strong relationship customer’s expectation of reciprocity. Therefore, we propose that greater relationship strength customers are more likely than customers with weaker relationships to feel less deserved when there is an absent of social support which may lead to decrease in spending pleasure.

Hypothesis 5-1 (H5-1): When firm social support is provided, people will be more likely to feel (a) self-deservingness and (b) pleasure of spending from strong relationship strength than weak relationship strength.

Hypothesis 5-2 (H5-2): When firm social support is absent, people will be more likely to feel (a) self-deservingness and (b) pleasure of spending from weak relationship strength and strong relationship strength.

Social support aimed at other customers

As management responses to a customer’s online post can be viewed by the network of online friends, they are not only influential to the poster himself/herself but also to other people who view the management response (Baker, 2017). Due to the public nature of posting and responding, service firms should not only consider the influence of responding to the customer who posted his or her experience but also the influence on other customers who observe the firms’ responses. del Río-Lanza et al. (2009) find that customer satisfaction declines when individuals perceive themselves being treated worse than others. In the context of online management responses, customer behavior may be determined not only by whether they receive responses from the firm but also by comparing to the responses provided to other customers by the firm (Gu & Ye, 2014). Therefore, perceptions of others receiving better treatment from the firm may negatively influence customers’ spending pleasure as they feel less deserving by the fact that while other customers are being cared and loved by the firm, they are not.

Hypothesis 6-1 (H6-1): When firm social support is provided, people will be more likely to feel (a) self-deservingness and (b) pleasure of spending when they observe other customers also receive firm social support than when they observe other customer not receiving firm social support.

Hypothesis 6-2 (H6-2): When firm social support is absent, people will be more likely to feel (a) self-deservingness and (b) pleasure of spending when observing other customers not receiving firm social support than observing other customers receiving firm social support.

The following sections describe the two studies designed to test the hypotheses. Study 1 examines the influence of online social support from online social network friends on spending pleasure mediated by self-deservingness (H1, H2) and the moderating effect of tie strength (H4). Study 2 examines the influence of online social support from the firm on spending pleasure mediated by self-deservingness (H1, H2) and the moderating effect of relationship strength (H5) and social support aimed at other customers (H6).

Pretest

Two pretests, one pretest for each study, were conducted to assess the effectiveness of the content and strength of manipulation stimuli differently as intended. Using a convenience sampling method, students enrolled at a University in the Northeast region of the United States were recruited to conduct a series of pretests, resulting in 101 participants in Study 1 and 97 participants in Study 2. Results from pretests confirmed the effectiveness of all manipulations of experimental stimuli. Based on the successful pretest results, we continued to use the same experimental stimuli and items to measure the research construct in the main study.

Study 1

Method

Study design, sample, and procedure

A 2 (peer social support; low vs. high) × 2 (tie strength; strong vs. weak) experimental between-subjects design was used (Figure 1). A total of 450 respondents were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk which is one of the largest national online marketing panel that features a diverse nationwide pool of consumers and provides high-quality data (Buhrmester et al., 2011). As this study aims to explore the role of online social support, to recruit eligible samples, several screening and accuracy questions were asked at the beginning of the survey to ensure respondents had Facebook account and posted comment or picture on their Facebook wall at least once in the last 6 months. Those who failed to answer one of the multiple screening questions were eliminated from further analysis (K. Kim & Baker, 2020). In addition, to ensure the quality of the data workers who participated in the survey needed to have “master” qualifications and demonstrated accuracy on specific types of human intelligence tasks (MTurk HITs; Y. S. Kim & Baker, 2020).

Figure 1.

Conceptual Model of Study 1.

Figure 2.

Conceptual Model of Study 2.

Participants were randomly assigned to a scenario and asked to fill out a survey questionnaire by only referring to the scenario. Participants were given a situation whereby they visit an expensive luxury restaurant for dinner and decide to post their experience on their Facebook. We utilized a luxury restaurant for our study context as indulgence consumption triggers more guilt feelings and justification for consumption (Okada, 2005) which strongly affects their post-consumption behavior. Indulgence in the context of consumer choice is allowing oneself to select and enjoy the pleasure from an option that is considered a treat compared with the alternative option (Xu et al., 2015). Although people can make indulgent choices across a range of consumption domains, dining out at a luxury restaurant is a common way to indulge oneself. Participants who have not posted anything on Facebook during the past year as well as participants failing quality check questions were excluded. Of 450 responses, 401 responses were used for further analysis due to their appropriate qualification for the study. Half of the respondents were male (49.9%), 69.1% were Caucasian, about 82% had a bachelor’s degree, and the average age was 34.35 years.

Experimental stimuli and measures

Peer social support was manipulated at two levels: low and high. Since it is not clear what the optimal number differentiating low and high support is (Scissors et al., 2016), we manipulated the magnitude of social support by phrase, not by specific number. In the high social support condition, when checking their post, a lot of their Facebook friends liked and left positive comments on their post, and the post was one of their most liked and commented posting. While in a low social support condition, only a couple of their friends liked and left positive Comments on their post, and the post was one of their least liked and commented posting. The tie strength manipulation was designed to capture the relevant dimensions of strength suggested by Granovetter (1973): frequency, duration, and closeness. Strong tie-strength friends were described as their closest Facebook friends who have been Facebook friends for a long time and communicate frequently on Facebook. Weak tie-strength friends were described as their distant Facebook friends who have become Facebook friends recently and communicate occasionally on Facebook. To control potential variables that may affect our dependent variable, the service quality (e.g., good and attentive service, enjoyable food) was consistently provided in all conditions (Appendix A).

All measurement items were adopted from previous studies to ensure validity and reliability issues, measured on a 7-point Likert-type scale. To test the effect of the experimental manipulations, perceived social support was measured with three items (Xu et al., 2015) and tie strength with six items (Perry-Smith, 2014) (Appendix B). Self-deservingness was measured with five items (Cavanaugh, 2014) and spending pleasure with three items (Tsiros et al., 2004). As a control variable, self-esteem was measured with 10 items from Rosenberg’s (1965), as it affects one’s reactions to social influences such as self-relevant feedback (Tafarodi & Swann, 1995) and average number of Likes/Comments per post participants normally receive was also measured as it may influence perceived social support. Full items of each construct are provided in Table 1.

Table 1.

Measurement Items.

Constructs and Scale Items	Cronbach’s		Factor Loading		CR		AVE
Constructs and Scale Items	Study 1	Study 2	Study 1	Study 2	Study 1	Study 2	Study 1	Study 2
Deservingness
To what extent did you feel you deserve to reward yourself	.96	.96	.932	.950	.96	.97	.86	.89
To what extent did you feel you deserve to treat yourself to nice things			.932	.948
To what extent did you feel you deserve to indulge yourself a little			.913	.931
To what extent did you feel you deserve to buy something special for yourself			.930	.952
Spending pleasure
I would feel satisfied with my spending at this luxury restaurant based on this experience.	.95	.96	.951	.963	.97	.98	.91	.93
I would be happy with my spending at this luxury restaurant			.948	.966
I would be pleased with my spending at this luxury restaurant			.957	.962
Self-esteem
On the whole, I am satisfied with myself	.94	.93	.815	.797	.95	.94	.64	.62
At times, I think I am no good at all			.850	.801
I feel that I have a number of good qualities			.780	.807
I am able to do things as well as most other people			.747	.815
I feel I do not have much to be proud of			.839	.772
I certainly feel useless at times			.856	.804
I feel that I’m a person of worth			.828	.735
I wish I could have more respect for myself			.570	.636
All in all, I am inclined to think that I am a failure			.834	.834
I take a positive attitude toward myself			.842	.824

Results

Manipulation check

A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was conducted with two manipulations as the independent variables and manipulation check questions as the dependent variable. The results show only a significant main effect of each manipulation on their respective manipulation check questions and the means were in the intended direction as followed: peer social support, F(1, 396) = 516.84, p < .01, M_High = 5.40 vs. M_Low = 2.95, and tie strength, F(1, 391) = 673.82, p < .01, M_Strong = 5.81 vs. M_Weak = 2.62. There was no interaction effect between two manipulations. Taken together, these results indicate successful manipulations.

Online social support and self-deservingness

A two-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with peer social support and tie strength as independent variables, and self-deservingness as a dependent variable, controlling for self-esteem and average number of Likes/Comments per post the respondents receives in their daily life was performed. There was a significant main effect of online social support, F(1, 393) = 6.00, p < .05, on self-deservingness, supporting H1 (Table 2). Receiving high social support (M = 4.60) increased participant’s self-deservingness than receiving low social support (M = 4.29). The interaction between the peer online social support and tie strength on self-deservingness was significant, F(1, 393) = 10.54, p < .001. Simple effects show that when receiving a high level of social support, the participants felt more self-deservingness when it comes from strong ties (M = 4.80) than weak ties (M = 4.36; p = .012), supporting H4-1(a). However, the pattern was reversed when receiving a low level of social support. In this case, the participants felt more self-deservingness when it comes from weak ties (M = 4.46) than strong ties (M = 4.13; p = .042), supporting H4-2(a) (Figure 3).

Table 2.

ANCOVA Result of Study 1.

Variables	Self-Deservingness		Spending Pleasure
Variables	F value	Partial Eta Square (η²)	F value	Partial Eta Square (η²)
Main effects
Peer social support	6.00*	.015	9.65**	.024
Tie strength	0.224	.001	2.34	.006
Interaction effects
Peer social support × tie strength	10.54***	.026	8.26**	.021
Covariates
Self-esteem	17.89***	.044	1.74	.004
Average number of likes	0.242	.001	0.205	.001
Average number of comments	1.00	.003	1.38	.004

ANCOVA: analysis of covariance.

<.05, **<.01, ***<.001.

Figure 3.

Interaction Effect of Peer Social Support and Tie Strength on Self-Deservingness.

Online social support and spending pleasure

Results of a two-way ANCOVA show a significant main effect of peer social support, F(1, 392) = 9.65, p < .01, on spending pleasure, supporting H2 (Table 2). Receiving high social support (M = 5.08) induces more spending pleasure than receiving low social support (M = 4.64). The interaction between the peer social support and tie strength on spending pleasure was significant, F(1, 392) = 8.26, p < .01. Simple effects show that when receiving a high level of social support, the participants experience more spending pleasure when it comes from strong ties (M = 5.40) than weak ties (M = 4.77; p = .003), supporting H4-1(b). However, the pattern was reversed when receiving a low level of social support. In this case, the participants experience more spending pleasure when it comes from weak ties (M = 4.73) than strong ties (M = 4.54; p = .325), supporting H4-2(b) (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Interaction Effect of Peer Social Support and Tie Strength on Spending Pleasure.

To examine the mediating effect of self-deservingness between peer social support and spending pleasure, bootstrapping procedure with 5,000 samples (95% CI) was conducted. The result support a significant indirect effect of online social support on spending pleasure through perceived self-deservingness (95% CI = [.0346, .3598]), supporting H3. In addition, bootstrap tests of moderated mediation (model 8; Preacher et al., 2007) showed that perceived self-deservingness did mediate the peer social support × tie-strength interaction (Index = .5215, 95% CI = [.2048, .8777]). Perceived self-deservingness was a significant mediator in the strong ties condition (b = .46, 95% CI = [.2211, .7299]), but not in the weak ties condition (b = −.06, 95% CI = [−.2749, .1483]).

Discussion

Results reveal that consumers feel more spending pleasure when they obtain social support from friends as they perceive they deserve that consumption experience. This is consistent with the theory that people use social information such as responses or feedback from others to justify the acceptability of their behavior. Social support serves as a barometer of determining their self-worthiness by how much they think they are being valued and supported by others. When people gain support from others on their consumption, it heightens their perceived self-deservingness by focusing their thoughts on their self-worthiness, which ultimately enhances their spending pleasure.

In addition, this study identifies a significant moderating effect of social support source: tie strength. Results find individuals are more susceptible to social support from strong ties than weak ties which makes people feel more deserving and ultimately increases spending pleasure. Given that people believe strong ties provide more credible information, they weigh their feedback more strongly. This builds upon previous research by examining an online social support context to find people have higher expectations toward strong ties as they usually interact more frequently and receive feedback often from strong ties. Our results also support that people feel less spending pleasure when there less social support from strong ties compared to weak ties, as a low amount of social support from strong ties may result in feelings of violation of expectation that make them feel less deserving.

Study 2

Method

Study design, sample, and procedure

To build upon the results of Study 1, a 2 (Firm social support; present vs. absent) × 2 (Relationship strength: strong vs. weak) × 2 (Social support aimed at others: present vs. absent) between-subjects factorial experiment was used for Study 2 (Figure 2). Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), resulting in 411 responses being used for further analysis based on the same procedures as Study 1. More than half of the respondents were male (52.8%), 64% were Caucasian, about 78% had a Bachelor’s degree, and the average age was 35.09 years.

Experimental stimuli and measures

Since examining the magnitude of social support from the firm is out of our research boundary, this study differentiated social support into present versus absent condition, rather than manipulating strength of the firm social support. In the social support present condition, when checking their post, respondents saw the official restaurant Facebook account liked their post and left a comment saying “Thank you for visiting our restaurant. It was a great pleasure serving you. We look forward to seeing you in your future visit.” In a social support absent condition, the respondents received no Likes or Comments from the restaurant. The relationship strength manipulation was designed to capture the relevant dimensions of strength suggested by Dagger et al. (2009): contact frequency and relationship duration. In the strong relationship condition, respondents frequently visit and have been a customer for a long time, which led them to have a strong and close relationship with the restaurant. In a weak relationship condition, respondents had not visited before nor had any relationship with the restaurant. Social support aimed at others was manipulated at two levels: present and absent. In the present condition, respondents found that the restaurant also liked and left a comment on a post of your dining companion who uploaded his or her experience of the restaurant on their Facebook. In the absent condition, respondents found that the restaurant neither liked nor left a comment on a post of your dining companion who uploaded his or her experience of the restaurant on their Facebook (Appendix A). The relationship strength manipulation check was measured using the three items (Dagger et al., 2009) and social support aimed at others was measured with three items (Xu et al., 2015) (Appendix B). All other measurement items were the same as Study 1.

Results

Manipulation check

A three-way ANOVA shows only a significant main effect of each manipulation on their respective manipulation check questions and the means were in the intended direction as followed: Firm social support, F(1, 402) = 546.80, p < .01, M_Present = 5.77 vs. M_Absent = 2.78, relationship strength, F(1, 402) = 321.04, p < .01, M_Strong = 5.15 vs. M_Weak = 2.22, and online social support aimed at other customers, F(1, 402) = 288.26, p < .01, M_Present = 5.41 vs. M_Absent = 2.92. There were no significant interaction effects among three manipulations. Taken together, these results indicate successful manipulations.

Online social support and self-deservingness

Result of a three-way ANCOVA show a significant main effect of online social support, F(1, 390) = 5.10, p < .05, on self-deservingness, supporting H1 (Table 3). Receiving online social support from the firm (M = 4.05) increased participant’s self-deservingness than not receiving online social support (M = 3.73). However, there was no significant interaction effect between social support and relationship strength with the company, F(1, 318) = 1.06, p > .05, failing to support both H5-1(a) and H5-2(a). The interaction between the online social support and online social support aimed at other customers was significant, F(1, 390) = 5.32, p < .05. Simple effects show that when firm social support is present, the participants felt more self-deservingness when they observe other customers also receive firm social support (M = 4.24) than when they observe other customers not receiving firm social support (M = 3.86; p = .05), supporting H6-1(a). However, when firm social support is absent, participants experience felt more self-deservingness when observing other customers not receiving social support (M = 3.86) than observing other customers receiving social support (M = 3.61; p = .203), supporting H6-2(a) (Figure 5).

Table 3.

ANCOVA Result of Study 2.

Variables	Self-Deservingness		Spending Pleasure
Variables	F value	Partial Eta Square (η²)	F value	Partial Eta Square (η²)
Main effects
Firm social support	5.10*	.013	62.05***	.137
Relationship strength	0.892	.002	3.24**	.008
Firm-other social support	0.217	.001	1.34	.003
Two-way interaction effects
Firm social support × Relationship strength	0.638	.002	0.003	.000
Firm social support × firm-other social support	5.32*	.013	4.52*	.011
Three-way interaction effects
Firm social support × relationship strength × firm-other social support	1.69	.004	0.383	.001
Covariates
Self-esteem	11.83*	.029	13.47***	.033
Average number of likes	6.96*	.018	7.86**	.020
Average number of comments	3.26	.008	5.44*	.014

<.05, **<.01, ***<.001.

Figure 5.

Interaction Effect of Firm Social Support and Firm-Other Social Support on Self-Deservingness.

Online social support and spending pleasure

Result of a three-way ANCOVA show a significant main effect of firm social support, F(1, 391) = 62.05, p < .001, on spending pleasure, supporting H2 (Table 3). Receiving firm social support (M = 5.07) induced more spending pleasure than not receiving firm social support (M = 3.89). However, there was no significant interaction effect between firm social support and relationship strength with the company, F(1, 391) = .003, p > .05, failing to support H5-1(a) and H5-2(a). The interaction between the firm social support and firm-other social support was significant, F(1, 391) = 4.52, p < .05. Simple effects show that when receiving social support from the firm, the participants experienced more spending pleasure when they observe other customer also obtain social support (M = 5.32) than when they observe other customer who do not obtain social support (M = 4.83; p = .511), supporting H6-1(b). However, when there is no social support from the firm, participants experience more spending pleasure when observing other customers not receiving social support (M = 3.93) than observing other customers receiving social support (M = 3.83; p = .020), supporting H6-2(b) (Figure 6).

Figure 6.

Interaction Effect of Firm Social Support and Firm-Other Social Support on Spending Pleasure.

The results from the bootstrapping procedure supported a mediation effect of perceived self-deservingness between online social support from the firm and spending pleasure (95% CI = [.0290, .3666]), supporting H3. Results of bootstrap test of moderated mediation showed that perceived self-deservingness mediate the firm social support × firm-other social support (Index = .3732, 95% CI = [.0473, .7231]). Perceived self-deservingness was a significant mediator when social support aimed at other customer is present (b = .38, 95% CI = [.1427, .6412]), but not when social support aimed at other customer is absent (b = .003, 95% CI = [−.2202, .2325]) (Table 4).

Table 4.

Summary of Hypothesis Testing.

Hypothesis	Result
H1. Online social support → Self-deservingness	Supported
H2. Online social support → Spending pleasure	Supported
H3. Online social support → Self-deservingness → Spending pleasure	Supported
H4(a). Peer social support × Tie strength → Self-deservingness	Supported
H4(b). Peer social support × Tie strength → Spending pleasure	Supported
H5(a). Firm social support × Relationship strength → Self-deservingness	Not supported
H5(b). Firm social support × Relationship strength → Spending pleasure	Not supported
H6(a). Firm social support × Firm-other social support → Self-deservingness	Supported
H6(b). Firm social support × Firm-other social support → Spending pleasure	Supported

Discussion

Consistent with Study 1, the findings from Study 2 show firm social support increases deservingness and spending pleasure. Responding to a customer post signals that the firm is monitoring and paying attention to their customer’s opinions and behavior (Wei et al., 2013). Thus, customers interpret such endeavors as feelings of social support, and consequently, gaining social support increases their spending pleasure. In addition, this study reveals the situational factor of observing social support aimed at other customers, which serves as a moderator. The results find that consumers are less likely to feel self-deservingness and spending pleasure when social support from the firm is absent toward them but present toward others. This supports that peer-induced fairness occurs in an online setting and that people experience a disutility when they receive a different material payoff compared to others (Ho & Su, 2009). Only others receiving social support negatively influences customer’s spending pleasure as they feel less deserving and cared for compared to other customers. Nevertheless, when social support from the firm is present, people are more likely to feel deserving and spending pleasure when they observe other customers also receiving social support compared to observing no social support aimed at other customers. Since this study used dining companions as an experimental stimulus to test the social support aimed at other customers, rather than a third party, participants may feel more deservingness and spending pleasure when both themselves and their dining companion receive social support from the firm as opposed to only receiving social support themselves but not their companion. In other words, people’s perceived self-deservingness is determined not only by whether they receive social support from the firm but also by the comparison to the social support received to other customers by the firm.

However, the results of this study did not support the moderating effect of the relationship strength with the firm. Having a strong relationship with the firm was not enough for customers to feel less deserving due to lack of social support. This is inconsistent with the norm of reciprocity, which suggests that strong relationship customers may feel less deserving than weak relationship customers when there is an absence of social support, as they have higher expectation for firm to provide favorable responses to them based on their investment toward the firm (Molm, 2010). A possible explanation for this result may lie in the fact that customers may not expect the reciprocity norm in the online social networks context. Even if strong relationship customers may believe that firms owe more than they owe weak relationship customers, customers may not expect firms to respond to their posts as they may believe it is additional services beyond the core services that is provided during the service encounter. Therefore, we assume that the reciprocity norm does not take action in our research context.

Conclusion

Theoretical Implications

As an original work to examine the impact of social support on spending pleasure and its underlying mechanism in the context of online social networks, this research expands upon the literature in several ways. First, although online social networks provide a new and critical venue for individuals to obtain social support by conveniently communicating with their social relationships online (Luna-Cortés et al., 2018), there are a lack of studies that examine in what form and from whom social support can be provided to individuals in the context of online social networks (Frison & Eggermont, 2015; Tajvidi et al., 2020). In fact, previous work examining motives for using social network sites (e.g., Facebook) suggests additional research is needed on the role of feedback functions such as Likes or Comments (Tajvidi et al., 2020). This study is valuable as it incorporates user-generated content in the form of Likes and Comments as mechanisms of a social support tool. In addition, this study suggests that individuals obtain effective and helpful social support from both online social networks friends and the firm when communicating online.

Second, while the social support literature consistently upholds the notion that social support provided by others positively influences psychological or physical health (Gonzales & Hancock, 2011), there are a lack of studies that examine its role in marketing consumption settings (C. Zhang et al., 2017). As customers upload their service consumption experiences online and seek to receive social support to fulfill self-presentation needs, it is critical to examine the mechanism of how social support affects consumption experiences and behavior. Results show that social support triggers positive consumption behavioral intentions by increasing their spending pleasure, thus contributing to the examination of the variables associated with spending and consumption experiences (Ki et al., 2017).

Third, this study highlights the psychological mechanism that underlies the relationship between social support and spending pleasure, by examining the role of deservingness. As prior work on deservingness mainly focuses on understanding when others are perceived to be deserving of negative or positive outcomes (Feather, 1999), relatively little is known about what shapes consumers’ perceptions of their own deservingness and how deservingness influences consumer’s behavior (Cavanaugh, 2014). This research highlights that perceived own deservingness plays a key role in explaining why people are more likely to enjoy their consumption behavior when they obtain social support from others. Online social support from consumption posts serves as an important source of justification of their consumption as it can be viewed as an achievement that people possess or have done which make them feel worthy of rewards and allow them to achieve greater enjoyment from their spending. This finding shed light on the fact that social influence is an external source that can influence one’s internal thinking process, how they feel about themselves, which then leads to their behavior.

Fourth, the current literature largely focuses on management responses of negative online reviews as recovery actions (Olson & Ro, 2020; Xie et al., 2014). Limited research examines the impact of management responses in situations in which customers post their general service experience without any intention of spreading negative word-of-mouth. This study expands the electronic word-of-mouth literature by showing the positive effect of management responses extends beyond negative posts by suggesting that online interaction between firm and customer on a positive post also increase post-consumption behavior.

Finally, this study investigates the boundary conditions for when online social support is more effective on spending pleasure. By incorporating relational and situational factors as moderators, the results show that the tie strength between provider and receiver of social support and the observation of social support aimed at other customers influence the magnitude of the effect of the social support on spending pleasure.

Managerial Implications

By illustrating the significant impact of online social support toward spending pleasure, our finding contributes new insights for marketers in the hospitality and tourism industry. Surprisingly, even with large firms that have social media strategies and team members, many firms still do not respond to customer posts, especially positive posts. As a part of customer relationship management, firms should be aggressively interacting with and responding to consumer’s posts on various online channels. While many hospitality firms are responding to negative customer reviews to improve customer satisfaction (Gu & Ye, 2014), little is known about how responding to positive customer posts regarding consumption with its firm as a way of showing social support can influence customer behavior. The findings of this study encourage hospitality firms who have not adopted response management in online social networks to improve their awareness of a response strategy. Firms should actively monitor online social networks through checking posts including those that checked in or tagged their operation or brand, by responding and commenting.

Providing social support of online posts represents an enhanced opportunity for customer engagement (Gruss et al., 2020). As the very nature of social media requires three-way interactions between customers, the firm, and other customers (Baker, 2017), firms should re-evaluate their marketing strategies to take advantage of these customer engagement opportunities. Engaging customer in online interactions enhances the customer experience and results in returns on positive customer behaviors (Gruss et al., 2020). This is not only important to enhance consumers’ pleasure of their consumption but more importantly influence their future behavioral intentions. In addition, the results reveal that observing responses to other customers but not receiving responses themselves has a significant and negative impact on spending pleasure. Given the public nature of online social networks, firms need to be careful in providing social support through management responses to ensure that all customer posts are managed equitably. Furthermore, while this study examines the effect of present vs. absent firm support as a critical first step, support can be even more effective if it is customized (Sparks & Bradley, 2017). Firms should avoid using “canned” responses that use the same sentences in their responses to online reviews (Hur et al., 2017). A useful way to achieve this is to follow the Triple A typology by using various phrases to (1) Acknowledge, (2) Account, and (3) Action (Sparks & Bradley, 2017).

Although it is impossible for marketers to predict how many Likes and Comments consumers may obtain on their post, it is worthwhile to understand the mechanism of the influence of social support on spending pleasure. Since perceived own deservingness plays a critical role in increasing one’s spending pleasure, service firms should develop marketing strategies that trigger customers’ deservingness. For instance, they can provide marketing messaging saying “You are special. You deserve it” or develop scripts for customer contact employees that emphasize deservingness.

Finally, this study provides managerial implications for high-end hospitality firms such as five-star hotels or gourmet restaurants where the average check amount is high. The issue of the extent to which spending money may lead consumers to feel guilt or pain is important for high-end hospitality firms providing luxury services, as a dilemma lies in their goal to increase consumers pleasure of spending in their operation and at the same time, reducing the pain and guilt associated with spending a great deal of money. Most of the managerial implications from the previous luxury marketing literature are limited to the exceptional services provided during the service encounter but no study has yet to suggest implications related beyond the service encounter (Kang & Hyun, 2012). As our research findings suggest that online social support provided by the firm increase spending pleasure, high-end hospitality firms should pay more attention to monitoring online social networks of their customers and actively interact and respond to their post if they post something related to their experience at their operation. This issue is particularly relevant to luxury hospitality firms as luxury consumption is highly associated with self-expression and impacts marketing influence (Kiatkawsin & Han, 2019). Accordingly, luxury hospitality firms should pay more attention to increase consumers’ perceived deservingness which serves as a justification tool for their expensive consumption.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

The current research has limitations as well as several other opportunities for further research that could encourage theory building across theoretical perspectives. First, the main assumption of this study is that feelings of guilt are triggered by spending money. To maximize the likelihood of guilt of spending, we utilized a luxury restaurant as a study context. Future research should incorporate different industries and examine the influence of online social support across different contexts. Second, in terms of the operationalization of the forms of social support in online social networks, this study focused on two communication functions of Facebook, namely, Likes and Comments. However, recently, Facebook provides more emotional reactions to other’s post including a red heart, a laughing face, a surprised face, a tearing face, and an angry face. While the “Like” button has been interpreted as positive signals for Facebook’s users, the new reactions could bring more valence of nuance. Along with that, although the current study tested the positive interaction in terms of social influence, future research should incorporate new reaction functions of Facebook, especially, the impact of negative reactions. Furthermore, in terms of the function of Comments as a social support tool, the magnitude of perceived social support may vary depending on the length or words being used in the Comments. Future research should investigate how varying Comments are perceived as either more or less socially supportive as a result of the language used. Codifying specific words and accessing how such words may elicit different levels or types of social support would be possible. Also, given that this study is the first attempt to test the impact of online social support on consumption behavior focusing on the feeling related to spending, future research may add more value by investigating behavioral intentions such as revisit intention or willingness to pay more. Finally, while this study examined the firm social support by whether the firm respond to the posting or not, future studies may differentiate the magnitude of the level of firm social support manipulating potential elements of the response that may strengthen or weaken the impact of responses such as customization, length, and emotional expression.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-cqx-10.1177_1938965520973576 – Supplemental material for Do I Deserve to Spend? Online Social Support and Spending Pleasure

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-cqx-10.1177_1938965520973576 for Do I Deserve to Spend? Online Social Support and Spending Pleasure by Kawon Kim and Melissa A. Baker in Cornell Hospitality Quarterly

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Kawon Kim

Melissa A. Baker

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biographies

Kawon Kim, PhD, is an assistant professor at the School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management in the College of Hospitality, Sports and Retail Management at the University of South Carolina. Her teaching focuses on foodservice and event management, and human resources management. Her main stream of research focuses on social and interpersonal influence in a service setting.

Melissa A. Baker, PhD, is an associate professor at the Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a multi-award winning teacher focusing on service experience management, food and beverage management, and human resources management. Her research focuses on service experience management with a concentration on service failure and recovery and appearance and impression formation.

References

Abrams

D. E.

Hogg

M. A.

(1990). Social identity theory: Constructive and critical advances. Springer-Verlag Publishing.

Baker

M. A.

(2017). Electronic customer relationship management and customer satisfaction (pp. 396–403). In Dixit

S. K.

(Ed.), Routledge handbook of consumer behavior in hospitality and tourism. Routledge.

Baumeister

R. F.

Leary

M. R.

(1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.

Buhrmester

Kwang

Gosling

S. D.

(2011). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality data? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 3–5.

Burke

Kraut

(2013). Using Facebook after losing a job: Differential benefits of strong and weak ties. In Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (pp. 1419–1430).

Cavanaugh

L. A.

(2014). Because I (don’t) deserve it: How relationship reminders and deservingness influence consumer indulgence. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(2), 218–232.

Coleman

J. S.

(1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95–S120.

Dagger

T. S.

Danaher

P. J.

Gibbs

B. J.

(2009). How often versus how long the interplay of contact frequency and relationship duration in customer-reported service relationship strength. Journal of Service Research, 11(4), 371–388.

del Río-Lanza

A. B.

Vázquez-Casielles

Díaz-Martín

A. M

. (2009). Satisfaction with service recovery: Perceived justice and emotional responses. Journal of Business Research, 62(8), 775–781.

10.

Deters

Mehl

M. R.

Eid

(2016). Social responses to Facebook status updates: The role of extraversion and social anxiety. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, 1–13.

11.

Feather

N. T.

(1999). Judgments of deservingness: Studies in the psychology of justice and achievement. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(2), 86–107.

12.

Frison

Eggermont

(2015). The impact of daily stress on adolescents’ depressed mood: The role of social support seeking through Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 44, 315–325.

13.

Gonzales

A. L.

Hancock

J. T.

(2011). Mirror, mirror on my Facebook wall: Effects of exposure to Facebook on self-esteem. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(1–2), 79–83.

14.

Granovetter

M. S.

(1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380.

15.

Grégoire

Tripp

T. M.

Legoux

(2009). When customer love turns into lasting hate: The effects of relationship strength and time on customer revenge and avoidance. Journal of Marketing, 73(6), 18–32.

16.

Gruss

Kim

Abrahams

(2020). Engaging restaurant customers on Facebook: The power of belongingness appeals on social media. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 44(2), 201–228.

17.

(2014). First step in social media: Measuring the influence of online management responses on customer satisfaction. Production and Operation Management, 23(4), 570–582.

18.

Harter

(1999). The construction of the self: A developmental perspective. Guilford Press.

19.

Herzlick

(2019, September 16). Replying to bad online reviews may be more important than getting 5 stars. https://www.newsday.com/business/small-business-online-reviews-1.36406241#:~:text=The%20study%2C%20done%20by%20San,can%20help%20you%20maximize%20revenues

20.

T. H.

(2009). Peer-induced fairness in games. The American Economic Review, 99(5), 2022–2049.

21.

Howe

Strauss

(2009). Millennials rising: The next great generation. Vintage.

22.

Hur

Kim

T. T.

Karatepe

O. M.

Lee

(2017). An exploration of the factors influencing social media continuance usage and information sharing intentions among Korean travellers. Tourism Management, 63, 170–178.

23.

Kang

Hyun

S. S.

(2012). Effective communication styles for the customer-oriented service employee: Inducing dedicational behaviors in luxury restaurant patrons. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(3), 772–785.

24.

Karr

(2018, June 14). Statistics on how travelers utilize social media before, during, and after a vacation. https://martech.zone/social-media-statistics-travel-vacation/

25.

Kelman

H. C.

(1958). Compliance, identification, and internalization: Three processes of attitude change? Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2, 51–60.

26.

Khan

Dhar

(2006). Licensing effect in consumer choice. Journal of Marketing Research, 43(2), 259–266.

27.

Lee

Kim

Y. K.

(2017). Pleasure and guilt: How do they interplay in luxury consumption? European Journal of Marketing, 51(4), 722–747.

28.

Kiatkawsin

Han

(2019). What drives customers’ willingness to pay price premiums for luxury gastronomic experiences at Michelin-starred restaurants? International Journal of Hospitality Management, 82, 209–219.

29.

Kim

J. M.

Hwang

Hyun

(2020). Understanding the dynamics of review posting and the management intervention effects on those dynamics. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 88, 102526.

30.

Kim

Baker

M. A.

(2020). The customer isn’t always right: The implications of illegitimate complaints. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(2), 113–127.

31.

Kim

Y. S.

Baker

M. A.

(2020). I earn it, but they just get it: Loyalty program customer reactions to unearned preferential treatment in the social servicescape. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), 84–97.

32.

Kivetz

Simonson

(2002). Self-control for the righteous: Toward a theory of precommitment to indulgence. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(2), 199–217.

33.

Lerner

M. J.

(1975). The justice motive in social behavior: Introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 31(3), 1–19.

34.

Liang

T. P.

Y. T.

Y. W.

Turban

(2011). What drives social commerce: The role of social support and relationship quality. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 16(2), 69–90.

35.

Luna-Cortés

López-Bonilla

J. M.

López-Bonilla

L. M.

(2018). Self-congruity, social value, and the use of virtual social networks by Generation Y travelers. Journal of Travel Research, 58(3), 398–410.

36.

Mittal

Katrichis

J. M.

(2000). Distinctions between new and loyal customers. Marketing Research, 12(1), 26–32.

37.

Molm

L. D.

(2010). The structure of reciprocity. Social Psychology Quarterly, 73(2), 119–131.

38.

Okada

E. M.

(2005). Justification effects on consumer choice of hedonic and utilitarian goods. Journal of Marketing Research, 42(1), 43–53.

39.

Olson

E. D.

(2020). Company response to negative online reviews: The effects of procedural justice, interactional justice, and social presence. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61, 312–331. https://doi.org/10.1177/1938965519892902

40.

Perry-Smith

J. E.

(2014). Social network ties beyond nonredundancy: An experimental investigation of the effect of knowledge content and tie strength on creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(5), 831–846.

41.

Pew Internet Report. (2014). Social media updates 2014. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/

42.

Preacher

K. J.

Rucker

D. D.

Hayes

A. F.

(2007). Addressing moderated mediation hypotheses: Theory, methods, and prescriptions. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 42(1), 185–227.

43.

Prelec

Simester

(2001). Always leave home without it: A further investigation of the credit-card effect on willingness to pay. Marketing Letters, 12(1), 5–12.

44.

Proserpio

Zervas

(2017). Online reputation management: Estimating the impact of management responses on consumer reviews. Marketing Science, 36(5), 645–665.

45.

Raghunathan

Corfman

(2006). Is happiness shared doubled and sadness shared halved? Social influence on enjoyment of hedonic experiences. Journal of Marketing Research, 43(3), 386–394.

46.

Review Trackers. (2019, May 17). 23 restaurant social media statistics you need to know. https://www.reviewtrackers.com/blog/restaurant-social-media-statistics/

47.

Rose

Blodgett

J. G.

(2016). Should hotels respond to negative online reviews? Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 57(4), 396–410.

48.

Rosenberg

(1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton University Press.

49.

Scissors

Burke

Wengrovitz

(2016). What’s in a like? Attitudes and behaviors around receiving Likes on Facebook. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer—Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing—CSCW ‘16 (pp. 1499–1508).

50.

Shemwell

D. J.

Jr. Cronin

J. J.

Jr. (1995). Trust and commitment in customer/service-provider relationships: An analysis of differences across service types and between sexes. Journal of Customer Service in Marketing & Management, 1(2), 65–75.

51.

Simonson

(1989). Choice based on reasons: The case of attraction and compromise effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 16(2), 158–174.

52.

Slama

Wolfe

(1999). Consumption as self-presentation: A socioanalytic interpretation of Mrs. Cage. Journal of Marketing, 63(4), 135–138.

53.

Sparks

B. A.

Bradley

G. L.

(2017). A “triple A” typology of responding to negative consumer-generated online reviews. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 41(6), 719–745.

54.

Tafarodi

R. W.

Swann

W. B.

Jr. (1995). Self-linking and self-competence as dimensions of global self-esteem: Initial validation of a measure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 65(2), 322–342.

55.

Tajvidi

Richard

M. O.

Wang

Hajli

(2020). Brand co-creation through social commerce information sharing: The role of social media. Journal of Business Research, 121, 476–486

56.

Tsiros

Mittal

Ross

W. T.

(2004). The role of attributions in customer satisfaction: A reexamination. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(2), 476–483.

57.

Valenzuela

Park

Kee

K. F.

(2009). Is there social capital in a social network site? Facebook use and college students’ life satisfaction, trust, and participation. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(4), 875–901.

58.

Valkenburg

P. M.

Peter

Schouten

A. P.

(2006). Friend networking sites and their relationship to adolescents’ well-being and social self-esteem. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 9(5), 584–590.

59.

Vitak

Ellison

N. B.

Steinfield

(2011). The ties that bond: Re-examining the relationship between Facebook use and bonding social capital. In Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 1530–1605). IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Cite.

60.

Walther

J. B.

Van Der Heide

Hamel

L. M.

Shulman

H. C.

(2009). Self-generated versus other-generated statements and impressions in computer-mediated communication a test of warranting theory using Facebook. Communication Research, 36(2), 229–253.

61.

Wei

Miao

Huang

Z. J.

(2013). Customer engagement behaviors and hotel responses. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 33, 316–330.

62.

Wilcox

Stephen

A. T.

(2013). Are close friends the enemy? Online social networks, self-esteem, and self-control. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(1), 90–103.

63.

Wills

T. A.

(1991). Social support and interpersonal relationships. SAGE.

64.

Wood

J. V.

Heimpel

S. A.

Manwell

L. A.

Whittington

E. J.

(2009). This mood is familiar and I don’t deserve to feel better anyway: Mechanisms underlying self-esteem differences in motivation to repair sad moods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(2), 363–380.

65.

Wright

K. B.

Bell

S. B.

(2003). Health-related support groups on the Internet: Linking empirical findings to social support and computer-mediated communication theory. Journal of Health Psychology, 8(1), 39–54.

66.

Xie

K. L.

Zhang

(2014). The business value of online consumer reviews and management response to hotel performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 43, 1–12.

67.

Schwarz

(2009). Do we really need a reason to indulge? Journal of Marketing Research, 46(1), 25–36.

68.

Zhou

(2015). Perceived social support reduces the pain of spending money. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 219–230.

69.

Zhang

Phang

C. W.

Luo

(2017). Nonlinear effects of social connections and interactions on individual goal attainment and spending: Evidences from online gaming markets. Journal of Marketing, 81(6), 132–155.

70.

Zhang

Gao

Zheng

(2020). Let’s talk about this in public: Consumer expectations for online review response. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 61(1), 68–83.

71.

Zhu

Jiang

Dou

Liang

(2019). Post, eat, change: The effects of posting food photos on consumers’ dining experiences and brand evaluation. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 46, 101–112.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.04 MB