Abstract:

Research on consumer behavior based on social identity is a new academic branch related to sociology, psychology and marketing. This paper aims to explore the influence of social identity information congruency between brand supporters and consumers on consumers’ purchase intention in the social network word-of-mouth situation. Across two experiments, the research discovers social identity information congruency positively affects consumers’ purchase intention. Compared to incongruent social identity information, the congruent social identity information between brand supporters and consumers may increase consumers’ purchase intention, especially for consumer with interdependent self-construal, while this positive effects doesn’t work for those with independent self-construal. The research also find consumer self-brand connections mediate the effects of social identity information congruency. This study enriches consumer behavior research field based on social identity, and provides managerial implications on brand building and marketing communication in the environment of emerging social media.

Key words: Brand supporters, Social identity, Information consistency, Self-construal, Self-brand connections, Purchase intention