Does the Identification With Other Consumers Minimize The Crowding Effect? The Perceived Similarity’s Role

Edvan Cruz Aguiar, Salomão Alencar de Farias
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21529/RECADM.2020004

Abstract

The study proposes that the consumer’s identification towards other clients who share the same retail environment minimizes the crowding effect. Thus, it was investigated how perceived similarity moderates the effect of human density on crowding perception, as well as crowding perception on consumer satisfaction. From an experimental study design, research hypotheses have been tested, and findings show that perceived similarity contributes to the negative effect of crowding being mitigated. The results also suggest that this variable is related to the consumer´s attitudes towards retailers, products and shopping experience. This work introduces a variable that has been neglected, regarding the crowding phenomena in the retail environment. It also extends the research possibilities on the role of social dimension of the retailing environment over the consumer behavior.


Keywords

perceived similarity; crowding; retailing.

Compartilhe

References


Aaker, D. A., Kumar, V., & Day, G. S. (2001). Pesquisa de marketing. São Paulo: Atlas.

Aguiar, E. C., & Farias, S. A.. (2015). Percepção da presença dos outros consumidores e sua relação com emoções e valor hedônico de compra. RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, 55(6), 712–723.

Aguiar, E. C., Farias, S. A., Gomes, V. M. S., & Santos, J. G. (2015). Percepção de crowding e comportamento do consumidor: Uma abordagem não linear no varejo supermercadista de baixa renda. Revista de Administração da UNIMEP, 13(3), 207-229.

Alnabulsi, H., & Drury, J. (2014). Social identification moderates the effect of crowd density on safety at the Hajj. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(25), 9091-9096.

Argo, J. J., Dahl, D. W., & Manchanda, R. V. (2005). The influence of a mere social presence in a retail context. Journal of Consumer Research, 32(2), 207–212.

Argo, J. J., Dahl, D. W., & Morales, A. C. (2008). Positive consumer contagion: Responses to attractive others in a retail context. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 690-701.

Baker, J. (1986). The Role of the Environment in Marketing Services: The Consumer Perspective. In J. A. Czepiel, C. A. Congram, & J. Shanahan (Orgs.). The Services Challenge: Integrating for Competitive Advantage (pp.79-84). Chicago: American Marketing Association.

Baker, J., Parasuraman, A., Grewal, D., & Voss, G. B. (2002). The influence of multiple store environment cues on perceived merchandise value and patronage intentions. Journal of marketing, 66(2), 120-141.

Baker, J., & Wakefield, K. L. (2012). How consumer shopping orientation influences perceived crowding, excitement, and stress at the mall. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(6), 791-806.

Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1173-1182.

Bearden, W. O., & Etzel, M. J. (1982). Reference group influence on product and brand purchase decisions. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(2), 183-194.

Bitner, M. J. (1992). Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. The Journal of Marketing, 56(2), 57-71.

Blau, G. J., & Katerberg, R. Toward enhancing research with the social information processing approach to job design. Academy of Management Review, 7(4), 543-550.

Borges, A., Chebat, J. C., & Babin, B. J. (2010). Does a companion always enhance the shopping experience?. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 17(4), 294-299.

Brandão, M. M., Parente, J., & Oliveira, B. B. (2010). Percepção de crowding no varejo: uma investigação exploratória no mercado Brasileiro. RAE-eletrônica, 9(2).

Brandão, M. M. (2011). Crowding no varejo: diferenças na satisfação e percepção de valor hedônico de consumidores de alta e baixa renda no Brasil. Tese de doutorado, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo – FGV/EAESP, São Paulo, SP, Brasil.

Brandão, M. M., & Parente, J. (2012). Brasileiro gosta de "muvuca"? Impacto da densidade humana no comportamento de compra. Revista de Administração de Empresas - RAE, 52(6), 613-627.

Brocato, E. D., Voorhees, C. M., & Baker, J. (2012). Understanding the influence of cues from other customers in the service experience: A scale development and validation. Journal of retailing, 88(3), 384-398.

Byrne, D. (1971). The attraction paradigm. New York: Academic Press.

Campbell, D. T., & Stanley, J. C. (1979). Delineamentos experimentais e quase-experimentais de pesquisa. São Paulo: EPU-EDUSP.

Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16(3), 297-334.

Emiley, S. F. (1975). The effects of crowding and interpersonal attraction on affective responses, task performance, and verbal behavior. The Journal of Social Psychology, 97(2), 267-278.

Eroglu, S. A., & Harrell, G. D. (1986). Retail crowding: Theoretical and strategic implications. Journal of retailing, 62(4), 346-363.

Evans, K. R., Christiansen, T., & Gill, J. D. (1996). The impact of social influence and role expectations on shopping center patronage intentions. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 24(3), 208-218.

Fisher, J. D., & Byrne, D. (1975). Too close for comfort: Sex differences in response to invasions of personal space. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(1), 15-21

Flick, U. (2009). Uma introdução à pesquisa qualitativa (2nd ed.). Porto Alegre: Bookman.

Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of marketing research, 18(1), 39-50.

Grove, S. J., & Fisk, R. P. (1997). The impact of other customers on service experiences: a critical incident examination of “getting along”. Journal of retailing, 73(1), 63-85.

Grush, J. E., Clore, G. L., & Costin, F. (1975). Dissimilarity and attraction: when difference makes difference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32(3), 783-789.

Hair, J. F., Anderson, R. E., Tatham, R. L., & Black, W. C. (2005). Análise multivariada de dados. (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Harrell, G. D., & Hutt, M. D. (1976). Buyer behavior under conditions of crowding: An initial framework. Advances in Consumer Research, 3(1), 36-39.

Harris, B., Luginbuhl, J. E., & Fishbein, J. E. (1978). Density and personal space in a field setting. Social Psychology, 41(4), 350-353.

Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York: The Guilford Press.

Hernandez, J. M., Basso, K., & Brandão, M. M. (2014). Pesquisa experimental em marketing. Revista Brasileira de Marketing – REMark, 13(2), 96-115.

Hui, M. K., & Bateson, J. E. (1991). Perceived control and the effects of crowding and consumer choice on the service experience. Journal of consumer research, 18(2), 174-184.

Hui, S. K., Bradlow, E. T., & Fader, P. S. (2009). Testing behavioral hypotheses using an integrated model of grocery store shopping path and purchase behavior. Journal of consumer research, 36(3), 478-493.

Jin, L., He, Y., & Zhang, Y. (2014). How power states influence consumers' perceptions of price unfairness. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(5), 818-833.

Kim, N., & Lee, M. (2012). Other customers in a service encounter: examining the effect in a restaurant setting. Journal of Services Marketing, 26(1), 27-40.

Kline, R. B. (2011). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. (3rd ed.). New York: The Guilford Press.

Kraut, R. E. (1982). Social presence, facial feedback, and emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(5), 853-863.

Kwon, H., Ha, S., & Im, H. (2016). The impact of perceived similarity to other customers on shopping mall satisfaction. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 28(1), 304-309.

Latané, B. (1981). The psychology of social impact. American Psychologist, 36(4), 343-356.

Lee, S. Y., Kim, J. O., & Li, J. G. (2011). Impacts of store crowding on shopping behavior and store image. Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 10(1), 133-140.

Loo, C. (1975). The psychological study of crowding. The American Behavioral Scientist, 18(6), 826-443.

Machleit, K. A., Eroglu, S. A., & Mantel, S. P. (2000). Perceived retail crowding and shopping satisfaction: what modifies this relationship?. Journal of consumer psychology, 9(1), 29-42.

Mackinnon, S. P., Jordan, C. H., & Wilson, A. E. (2011). Birds of a feather sit together: Physical similarity predicts seating choice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(7), 879-892.

Maeng, A., Tanner, R. J., & Soman, D. (2013). Conservative when crowded: Social crowding and consumer choice. Journal of Marketing Research, 50(6), 739-752.

Malhotra, N, K. (2006). Pesquisa de marketing: uma orientação aplicada. (4th ed.). São Paulo: Prentice Hall.

Martin, C. L. (1996). Consumer‐to‐consumer relationships: satisfaction with other consumers' public behavior. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 30(1), 146-169.

Martin, C. L., & Pranter, C. A. (1989). Compatibility management: customer-to-customer relationships in service environments. Journal of Services Marketing, 3(3), 5-15.

McFerran, B., & Argo, J. J. (2014). The entourage effect. Journal of Consumer Research, 40(5), 871-884.

McGrath, M. A., & Otnes, C. (1995). Unacquainted influencers: when strangers interact in the retail setting. Journal of Business Research, 32(3), 261-272.

Mehta, R. (2013). Understanding perceived retail crowding: A critical review and research agenda. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 20(6), 642-649.

Mehta, R., Sharma, N. K., & Swami, S. (2013). The impact of perceived crowding on consumers' store patronage intentions: Role of optimal stimulation level and shopping motivation. Journal of Marketing Management, 28(8), 812-835.

Miao, L., Mattila, A. S., & Mount, D. (2011). Other consumers in service encounters: a script theoretical perspective. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(4), 933-941.

Michon, R., Chebat, J. C., & Turley, L. W. (2005). Mall atmospherics: the interaction effects of the mall environment on shopping behavior. Journal of Business Research, 58(1), 576-583.

Montoya, R. M., Horton, R. S., & Kirchner, J. (2008). Is actual similarity necessary for attraction? A meta-analysis of actual and perceived similarity. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 25(6), 889-922.

Montoya, R. M., & Horton, R. S. (2012). A meta-analytic investigation of the processes underlying the similarity-attraction effect. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30(1), 64-94.

Moore, R., Moore, M. L., & Capella, M. (2005). The impact of customer-to-customer interactions in a high personal contact service setting. Journal of Services Marketing, 19(7), 482-491.

Pan, Y., & Siemens, J. C. (2011). The differential effects of retail density: An investigation of goods versus service settings. Journal of Business Research, 64(1), 105-112.

Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior research methods, 40(3), 879-891.

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.

Quezado, I., Costa, J. S., Peñaloza, V., Matos, F. R. N., & Ferraz, S. B. (2016). Sempre cabe mais um? Uma investigação cross-cultural do comportamento do consumidor em ambiente aglomerado. Revista de Administração FACES Journal, 14(3), 56-74.

Raajpoot, N., Jackson, A., & Lefebvre, J. (2013). Non-verbal customer-to-customer interaction in retail setting: An investigation of indirect effects of perceived customer similarity on important marketing outcomes. Atlantic Marketing Journal, 2(1), 16-41.

Rüstemli, A. (1991). Crowding effects of density and interpersonal distance. The Journal of social psychology, 132(1), 51-58.

Ryan, M. J. (1982). Behavioral intention formation: The interdependency of attitudinal and social influence variables. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(3), 263-278.

Söderlund, M. (2011). Other customers in the retail environment and their impact on the customer’s evaluations of the retailer. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 18(3), 174-182.

Stokols, D. (1972). On the distinction between density and crowding: Some implications for future research. Psychological review, 79(3), 275-278.

Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2013). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Thakor, M. V., Suri, R., & Saleh, K. (2008). Effects of service setting and other consumers’ age on the service perceptions of young consumers. Journal of Retailing, 84(2), 137-149.

Tombs, A. G., & McColl-Kennedy, J. R. (2010). Social and spatial influence of customers on other customers in the social-servicescape. Australasian Marketing Journal – AMJ, 18(3), 120-131.

Uhrich, S., & Benkenstein, M. (2012). Physical and social atmospheric effects in hedonic service consumption: customers' roles at sporting events. The Service Industries Journal, 32(1), 1741-1757.

Uhrich, S., & Luck, M. (2012). Not too many but also not too few: Exploring the explanatory mechanisms for the negative effects of low customer density in retail settings. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 15(3), 290-308.

Verhoef, P. C., Kannan, P. K., & Inman, J. J. (2015). From multi-channel retailing to omni-channel retailing: introduction to the special issue on multi-channel retailing. Journal of retailing, 91(2), 174-181.

Vieira, V. A. (2009). Moderação, mediação, moderadora-mediadora e efeitos indiretos em modelagem de equações estruturais: uma aplicação no modelo de desconfirmação de expectativas. Revista de Administração da Universidade de São Paulo - RAUSP, 44(1), 17-33.

White, R. W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. Psychological review, 66(5), 297-333.

Wu, L. L., Mattila, A. S., & Han, J. R. (2014). Territoriality revisited: Other customer's perspective. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 38(1), 48-56.

Xu, J., Shen, H., & Wyer, R. S., Jr. (2012). Does the distance between us matter? Influences of physical proximity to others on consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), 418-423.

Yüksel, A. (2009). Exterior color and perceived retail crowding: Effects on tourists' shopping quality inferences and approach behaviors. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 10(4), 233-254.

Zhang, X., Li, S., Burke, R. R., & Leykin, A. (2014). An examination of social influence on shopper behavior using video tracking data. Journal of Marketing, 78(9), 24-41.




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.