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Purchase intention under digital peer pressure- From the
perspective of Chinese parents
Yiqing Yu
Sun Yat-sen University
Xinghua Wang
Beijing Normal University
Abstract
The link between digitalization and consumer behavior has drawn attention in
academia. Through the lens of social influence theory and the theory of planned
behavior, we investigate the impact of digital peer pressure on purchase intention in
the scenario of early-childhood-education (ECE) program. We sampled 250 Chinese
parents, and analyzed data by partial least squares- based structural equation modeling
(PLS-SEM). The results show that social media use intensity positively affects
subjective norm and parental intersubjective perception, and both relationships are
reinforced by trust in the information on social media. The impact of intersubjective
perception on purchase intention is fully mediated by attitude to ECE program. This
finding sheds light on the fact that digital peer pressure in the form of intersubjective
perception may be internalized into attitude and further induces purchase intention.
This mechanism underlies peer pressure-behavioral intention link. Furthermore,
parents with higher level of education are less affected by subjective norm.
Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the paper.
Key words: digital peer pressure, intersubjective approach, social media, China, PLS-
SEM
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Purchase intention under digital peer pressure- From the
perspective of Chinese parents
1. Introduction
Social interactions, which nowadays can be facilitated by social media, exert a strong
influence on opinion formation (Buchanan, 2007). It implies that individuals are
strongly affected by peer pressure while forming their own consumption attitude and
judgment. The current study focuses on digital peer pressure, which is attributed to
social media use, like Wechat, and seeks to address how it relates to consumer
purchase intention.
With over 1 billion active monthly users worldwide1 Wechat is the prevalent social
media application for people living in China to acquire, exchange information and
connect communities. Rather than app, it has become an integral part of Chinese
lifestyle. In China social media has an even greater influence on purchase decision for
consumers than in other countries. For example, Chinese consumers are more likely to
consider buying a product if they see it discussed positively by friends on Wechat
(Chiu et al., 2012). In light of its strong effect on consumer behavior, we seek to
address how information acquisition via social media gives rise to digital peer
pressure and further leads to purchase intention. The effect of subjective norm on
purchase intention, as a source of peer pressure, has been confirmed by numerous
studies. Nevertheless, behavioral intention may also be driven by peer pressure from
community or culture apart from “a specific person who is important to you”, as is
generally accepted to measure subjective norm. In other words, individual’s
perception of peer pressure can be fuzzy and non-specific but at the same time
significant for predicting behavioral intention. However there is a dearth of studies
investigating this missing part of peer pressure. Accordingly, the current study aims to
elucidate the antecedents and consequences of digital peer pressure from a Chinese
perspective, and further compare the influential mechanism and effect of subjective
norm and intersubjective perception on purchase intention and moderating role of
consumer’s education level.
We use Chinese Early-Childhood-Education (ECE) market as research scenario. ECE
program for kids is a typical credence good, and the quality of which is difficult to
assess even after the consumption, so the purchase decision to large extent relies on
adequate knowledge- and experience-sharing among peer parents. So this study seeks
to address the impact of social media use on purchase intention of ECE program and
the psychological mechanism underlying this effect. Since Wechat permeates daily
life of Chinese people and has become a routine for interpersonal communication in
China, we argue Wechat use is representative of social media use across China.
Additionally, this scenario can ensure that the target population, namely Chinese
parents of 0-6 year-old kids, is frequent users of Wechat, and therefore it is pertinent
to address digital peer pressure in this scenario.
2. Literature review and model development
2.1. Intersubjective approach
1 https://technode.com/2018/03/05/wechat-1-billion-users/, last access on Apr. 24. 2018
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Intersubjective approach was pioneered to identify core values in a culture and attests
to the fact that core values are values that members of the culture as a group generally
believe to be important (Wan et al., 2007b) and widely shared (Wan et al., 2007a) in
the culture. Intersubjective perceptions refer to the shared perceptions of the
psychological characteristics that are widespread within a culture (Chiu et al., 2010).
Although the classical research on cultural influence on human behavior focuses on
internalized personal values and beliefs, intersubjective perception provides an
alternative lens to look at culture and social norm, that is what the individuals think
their peers think or do can direct their behavior whereas personal values and beliefs
cannot always have the same effect (Chiu et al., 2010). The behavioral influence of
intersubjective perceptions of collectivism (Shteynbert et al., 2009), dispositionism,
prevention focus (Zou et al., 2009) and conscientiousness (Heine et al. 2008) have
been confirmed in literatures. Besides, its influence on judgment has also been
evidenced in experimental studies (Wan et al., 2007; Wan et al., 2010).
Recently the domain of applying intersubjective approach has extended from between
cultural groups to within cultural groups. Notably variations within groups like ethnic,
religious, generational lines have effect on human behavior and are hence worth
further investigation (Malham and Saucier, 2015). Gao et al. (2015) find out
egocentric communication coupled with a preference to communicate with dissimilar
others may ultimately increase group homogeneity whereas audience design
communication may increase cognitive diversity level in a group. As a response to the
call by Malham and Saucier (2015), we divert attention to the group of Chinese
parents and seek to investigate whether the variation of individual’s purchase
intention result from within-group heterogeneity of intersubjective perception.
The belief or idea connoted in intersubjective perception of purchase likelihood is
widely shared and hence has survived the test of evolution of ECE market; thus it is
considered as consensual valid (Hardin and Higgins, 1996). Further we can infer from
this argument that parents are inclined to adopt the knowledge and meaning the
intersubjective perception transmits. Accordingly, intersubjective perception of
purchase likelihood has compliance effect (Bagozzi 2002), that is, the peer pressure
derived from intersubjective perception may orient individual’s purchase intention
towards peer parents’, though he may not believe in ECE program or show a positive
attitude to it. Gao et al. (2015) indicates people would take account of descriptive
norms in decision-making, even if they doubt the norms. Based on these evidences,
we argue for its predictive power on individual’s intention of purchasing ECE
program. More formally,
H1: Intersubjective perception has a positive effect on purchase intention.
In Kelman’s social influence theory (Kelman, 1958), attitude change can result from
social influence. Likewise, under peer pressure parental attitude towards ECE
program would change. Intersubjective approach just provides a fresh way to estimate
individual perception of peer pressure. Here we have the clue that intersubjective
perception might lead to attitude change.
On the other hand, internalization is one process of attitude change, which refers to
the process whereby individual behavior is induced to seek congruence with the self
value system (Kelman, 1958). Internalization occurs when an individual integrates
other’s values into his own value system. By analogy, a parent would have intention
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to purchase ECE program because it is congruent with his value system, namely
internalization. Among others, intersubjective perception of purchase likelihood is
one source of peer pressure, therefore the values transmitted in it can be internalized
and attitude change is just a manifestation of this process. Accordingly we propose:
H2: intersubjective perception has a positive effect on attitude.
Internalization is learning not to think about social norms (Andrighetto et al., 2010),
like peer pressure. In other words, the effect of intersubjective perception on purchase
intention would be to some extent replaced by rational factors like attitude, if we take
the perspective of the theory of reasoned action (TRA), which posits social norm and
attitude jointly predict behavioral intention (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). It is hence
likely that attitude toward ECE program assimilates the impact of intersubjective
perception on purchase intention. Thus, this attenuated effect is proposed as:
H3: The direct relationship between intersubjective perception and purchase intention
is mediated by attitude.
2.2. Individual use of social media and digital peer pressure
In the digital era, the individual use of social media has multiple consequences on the
individual level. According to Bolton et al. (2013), it generates social capital, fosters
identity formation, and brings about psychological & emotional wellbeing, physical
wellbeing and behavioral outcomes in the context of Generation Y. In Ghana, social
media use gives rise to bridging social capital & subjective wellbeing in Ghana
(Karikari et al., 2017). Regarding behavioral outcomes, the extant literatures have
found out that individual use of social media promotes electronic word-of-mouth
(eWOM) behavior (Mishra et al., 2018; Leong et al., 2018a). Likewise, frequent use
of social media and perceived peer influence predict Generation Y’s intention to
engage in eWOM about their service experience (Zhang et al., 2017). Additionally, it
is positively related to online shopping activity (Zhang et al., 2018). For example,
Facebook usage intensity leads to impulse purchase and urge to purchase (Leong et al.,
2018b). Social media use coupled with eWOM has a positive impact on purchase-
decision involvement (Prasad et al., 2017).
In China, social media seems to play a more influential role in consumers purchasing
decision than anywhere else in the world. As Chiu et al (2012) pointed out: “Chinese
consumers… are more likely to consider buying a product if they see it discussed
positively on a social-media site, and more likely to actually purchase a product or
service if a friend or acquaintance recommends it on a social-media site.” It stands to
reason that when Chinese parents are more frequently exposed to the information in
Wechat, the more likely they come across the purchase-related information, such as
advertisements published by the official account of ECE companies or peer discussion
in group chat or tweets in peer’s “Moments”2. Under this circumstance, they tend to
show positive attitude and intention to purchase ECE program. One step further, we
wonder the underlying mechanism of this effect. However, a paucity of research
provides evidence in this regard. Stronge et al. (2015) elucidate Facebook use would
facilitate social comparison with peers and may further lead to body dissatisfaction.
Similarly, Fox and Moreland (2015) corroborate Facebook use would engender social
comparison to other network members, which triggers anxiety, jealousy and other
2 “Moments” is a function in Wechat to share user’s updates and access friend’s updates.
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negative emotion. Social comparison, as a manifestation of some deep-rooted
psychological status, must have a precondition that the individual perceives the
presence of peers and the sense of their presence. Thus, we argue intersubjective
perception functions as a psychological mechanism underlying the relationship
between social media use and purchase attitude/ intention. To be specific,
H4: Social media use intensity has a positive effect on intersubjective perception.
On the other hand, peer influence as an antecedent can predict social media use
(Karikari et al., 2017), use intention (Akman and Mishra, 2017), compulsive social
media use (Turel and Osatuyi 2017) and specific social media-related behavior, like
photo tagging in Facebook (Dhir et al., 2017). In these literatures, peer influence is the
perception of peer’s opinions adapted to social media use and it is assumed to preexist
prior to social media use. However, the engaged social media users can in turn
influence their peers in terms of persuading others and making specific suggestions
within social media (Weeks et al., 2017). This effect has been examined in behavioral
studies. Sattler et al. (2013) find out the number of cognitive enhancement drug users
in an individual’s social network would lift individual’s willingness to use a substance
to enhance academic performance. Cavazos-Rehg et al. (2015) confirm that watching
online displays of peer’s drinking behaviors is a potential type of peer pressure that
might lead to individual’s alcohol misuse.
To summarize, when using social media, notably after the exposure of information in
Wechat, individual would perceive a specific peer pressure that depends on the
information he is exposed to. This peer influence has a positive effect on subjective
norms (Gunawan and Huarng, 2015). After noticing an event report in ECE program
shared by peer parent in “Moments”, the focal parent would presumably perceive
pressure from peer parents. Under this condition, subjective norm might be enhanced.
Besides, tie strength, which refers to the extent the individual attaches importance to
the friends in the social network, positively affect subjective norm in terms of
adopting information on Wechat (Song et al., 2017). Nevertheless, digital peer
pressure does not exclusively result from the influence of friends since there are three
types of social media communication, namely peer-to-peer communication;
communication in group discussion; communication with official accounts (Cheng et
al., 2017). That is, peer pressure is attributed to not only the tie with friends, but also
with contacts in all these forms. Thus, we propose an effect of the overall use of social
media:
H5: Social media use intensity has a positive effect on subjective norm.
2.3.Trust in comments and information in social media
Trust could take three forms, namely trust between individuals (interpersonal trust),
trust between individuals and organizations (intra-organizational trust) and trust
between organizations (organizational trust) (Gremler et al., 2001). In the
aforementioned three types of social media communication, peer-to-peer
communication and group discussion would trigger interpersonal trust whereas
communication with official accounts would bring about intra-organizational trust.
Thus, in this study we address the effect of these two forms of trust.
The effect of trust on the purchase decision-making has been examined by a number
of studies on social commerce (Busalim and Hussin, 2016). Consumer’s trust in other
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members in the social commerce website (Shi and Chow, 2015) and trust in
information content and source (Qu et al., 2017) have a positive effect on eWOM.
One step further, trust generated from eWOM enhances purchase intention (See-To
and Ho, 2014). Consumer’s trust in online sellers (Lu et al., 2016; Yahia et al., 2018),
trust in online information (Prasad et al., 2017), notably in contents and source thereof,
and trust in platform (Qu et al., 2017) directly engenders purchase intention. Trust in
the comments on Wechat positively affects attitude toward Wechat usage (Lien and
Cao, 2014). Notably, these studies on trust investigate an explicit effect of trust,
namely its effect on attitude, behavioral intention or behavior, instead of elucidating
the underlying mechanism of this effect. On the other hand, it is well known that
perception is the precondition of attitude and behavioral intention according to basic
cognitive process (McShane and Glinow, 2012). In this regard, Erkan and Evans
(2016) confirm that information credibility of social media websites can well predict
consumer’s perception of information usefulness. Furthermore, trust has been found
to positively moderate relationship between social media brand engagement and
perception of brand equity (Chahal and Rani, 2017). Thus, there is still a dearth of
studies addressing the effect of consumers’ trust in the comments and information on
social media on their perceptions in question, like perceptions of the pressure from the
peers and the collective.
A trusted relationship is of high solidarity and can hence transmit more sensitive and
richer information (Krackhardt and Hanson, 1993), which accidentally improves
intensity of information an individual is exposed to. Accordingly social media users
may have a stronger and more definite perception of peer pressure, which triggers
subjective norm and intersubjective perception. That is, users’ trust in information on
social media may scale up the effect of their social media use intensity. In the absence
of trust in comments and information on Wechat, parents would not bother to make
sense of it, let alone challenge it in an intersubjective context and compare with peers.
In addition, trust has been addressed as a moderator (Langfred, 2004; Chahal and
Rani, 2017) instead of simply a direct impact. Thus, we propose:
H4a: The effect of social media use intensity on intersubjective perception is
reinforced (attenuated) as parental trust in information on social media increases
(decreases).
H5a: The effect of social media use intensity on subjective norm is reinforced
(attenuated) as parental trust in information on social media increases (decreases).
2.4. The theory of planned behavior
To better understand parental purchase intention of ECE program, we refer to the
theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991). This is a classical theory to elucidate
human behavior under social influence, and has been supported by numerous
empirical evidences across disciplines (Armitage and Conner, 2001). In the context of
Chinese consumers, recently TPB has been widely adopted as a basic framework to
address purchase intention of genetically modified food (Zhang et al., 2018), plastic
bags (Sun et al., 2017), halal meat (Ali et al., 2018), energy-efficient appliance (Wang
et al., 2017), green apparel products (Ko and Jin, 2017), green food (Zhu et al., 2013;
Zhou et al., 2013), imported goods (Chung et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2011), a US apparel
brand (Jin et al., 2012), counterfeit (Sharma and Chan, 2016). Unfortunately, as of
now no study has cast light on purchase behavior of commercial education services
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for preschool kids, let alone adopt TPB. Indeed, we even wonder whether TPB is still
valid when user and consumer are separate, as in the context of purchasing ECE
program for kids.
According to the findings of a qualitative study conducted by Kim and Koh (2012),
luxury infant clothing consumption in Korea can be equated with ECE program
consumption in China since the both scenarios reflect the same consumption culture,
that is, parents competitively seek only the best for their children to get a head start
over the peers. However, Kim and Koh’s study was not subjected to a statistical test,
hence it provides no empirical support for the influential factors. Thus, we propose
that intention of purchasing ECE program is predicted by parental attitude toward
ECE program, perceived behavior control (PBC) and subjective norm, namely,
H6/7/8: Attitude/ Perceived behavior control / subjective norm positively predicts
purchase intention.
According to TPB, attitude toward purchasing ECE program is determined by the
total set of beliefs of purchasing ECE program, that is, the sum of beliefs, each of
which is weighted by the parent’s evaluation of the outcome. In other words, the
expected outcomes of ECE program contribute to parental attitude toward it. In the
present study, parental expectation is referred to as the aggregated evaluations of each
expected outcome of ECE program. To further investigate the effect of parent’s
expectation of ECE program, we propose
H9: Parental expectation has a positive effect on attitude.
2.5 Education, attitude and behavioral intention
Even when being confronted with the same degree of social influence, consumers
with different education level may show distinct attitude toward or intention of the
purchase behavior in question, since less-educated consumers generally show more
positive attitudes toward the advertising than well-educated consumers (Shavitt et al.,
1998). Higher education level implies the equipment with ample knowledge and
ability to evaluate the information transmitted by the advertisement. So they tend to
distinguish the disturbances from the valuable information during the formation of an
attitude or intention. Similar to advertisement, social influence also transmits
information to consumers, though via social interaction. On the other hand, well-
educated consumers tend to collect more information regarding the goods per se than
less-educated ones prior to making decisions (Capon & Burke, 1980; Cooil et al.,
2007; Punj, 2011). This implies higher education level may decrease the effect of peer
pressure on purchase attitude or intention; meanwhile the effect of rational factors
would loom large. By contrast, the education level has a seemingly reversed effect
when Chekima et al. (2016) confirm its positive moderating role on the relationship
between environmental advertising and consumers’ green purchase intention. It is
worth of note, however, that green purchase pertains to sustainable consumption, and
the environmental advertising in Chekima et al.’s study is non-for-profit, and it aims
to spread scientific knowledge to the public, rather than promote purchase. Therefore,
well-educated consumers would be more responsive to the advertising. By
comparison, well-educated consumers tend to be more aroused by the environmental
advertising whereas consumers with low level of education may be more sensitive to
peer pressure. Thus, we propose the negative moderating role of education:
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H2a: The relationship between intersubjective perception and attitude is reinforced
(attenuated) as education level decreases (increases).
H8a: The relationship between subjective norm and purchase intention is reinforced
(attenuated) as education level decreases (increases).
3. Empirical analysis
3.1 Measures
There are 8 constructs to be measured in the study, namely intersubjective perception
(IP), subjective norm (SN), attitude to ECE program purchase (A), purchase intention
(I), perceived behavioral control (C), expectation of ECE program (E), social media
use intensity (SMI) and trust in comments and information in social media (T). All the
measurement items are adapted from prior studies to ensure the general validity. The
sources are shown in Table 1. To note, the measurement approach of intersubjective
perception proposed by Chiu et al. (2010) can apply to various cultural contents and
cultural milieus. It involves only one question, namely “the extent to which most
group members or a representative member of the group would endorse a certain
value”. To tailor to the context of ECE program purchase in China, we modify it and
add another 3 scales to measure intersubjective perception reflectively. The complete
items were listed in Appendix A.
Table 1 Sources of measurement items
Construct Items Sources Way of measurement
IP 4 Chiu et al. (2010), Wan et al. (2007a) Reflective
SN 3 Ajzen (1991), Wu et al. (2016)
A 3
I 3
C 3
SMI 4 Ellison et al. (2007)
T 3 Lien and Cao (2014)
E 4 Modified based on Leung and Shek (2011) Formative
3.2 Data collection
The empirical data in this study was collected through survey. After removing 31
questionnaires with more than 50% missing values, inconsistent responses and
response time less than 5 minutes, we got 250 valid responses. The sample is
composed of parents of 0-6-year-old child, irrespective of their ECE program
purchase experience. Thus, the sample comprises parents without ECE program
purchase experience. Each question of the focal variables was measured on a 7- point
Likert scale. The sample demographics are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Sample characteristics
Measure Items Percentage
Gender Male 20
Education Middle school and below 0.8
High school 3.2
Junior college 16.8
Bachelor 46.4
9
Master 26.8
PhD. 6
Household annual income (10000 RMB) 10 and below 8.4
10-20 26.8
20-30 29.2
30-40 17.6
40-50 10
50-100 5.6
100 and above 5.2
Expenditure on ECE program per month
(RMB)
0 33.6
1-500 4.4
501- 1000 22.8
1001-1500 14.8
1501-2000 8.8
2001 and above 15.6
3.3 Common method bias
As this is a self-reported survey, the data might be affected by common method bias
(CMB). In order to control it a priori, I promised respondents that their answers would
be anonymous and informed them there was no right or wrong answer. Further, the
study reversely scores some items and places independent variables and dependent
variables to the different sections of the questionnaire to prevent the possible
acquiescence (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Then the study uses Harman’s single-factor test
to access the CMB ex post. Four factors were extracted by the exploratory factor
analysis and the first factor explaining 29.18% of the total variance. This result
indicates that no single factor emerged which accounted for the majority of the
variance. Taken together, CMB might be not a concern of the study.
3.4 Assessment of measurement models
There are several reasons that the current study uses PLS-SEM. First, the study does
seeks to explore the effect of digital peer pressure by an intersubjective approach, so it
would make sense to address total variance of the measurement indicators instead of
communality (Sarstedt et al., 2016). For such an exploratory proposition, PLS is the
appropriate method (Gefen et al., 2011). Second, skewness and kurtosis indicate
several indicators in the dataset do not follow normal distribution. PLS-SEM in this
regard provides very robust model estimations with nonnormal data (Reinartz et al.,
2009). Third, the expectation of ECE program is formatively measured in the study
that can be better handled by PLS than by covariance-based method (Sarstedt et al.,
2016). The analysis was conducted with SmartPLS 3.2.7. (Ringle et al., 2015).
The study assessed reflective models by following criteria proposed by Hair et al.
(2017). Table 3 shows composite reliabilities (CR) for constructs are higher than 0.70,
which indicate satisfactory internal consistency reliability. Cronbach’s α, as a
conservative measure of reliability, are all above 0.70 as well. Thus, the constructs
meet the criteria of internal consistency reliability. All loadings of the constructs are
above the threshold value of 0.708. Average variance extracted (AVE) values for both
constructs are above the threshold value of 0.50, indicating more than 50% of the
indicators’ variance can be captured by the construct, which demonstrates the
constructs’ convergent validity.
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Table 3 Convergent Validity and Reliability Test for Constructs
Construct Item Mean Standard deviation Loading Cronbach´s α CR AVE
IP IP1 4.79 1.35 .841 .865 .906 .706
IP2 4.56 1.46 .797
IP3 4.65 1.48 .869
IP4 4.77 1.39 .853
SN SN1 4.34 1.61 .905 .875 .923 .800
SN2 4.19 1.57 .842
SN3 4.27 1.69 .934
SMI SMI1 4.55 1.51 .876 .899 .929 .768
SMI2 4.56 1.46 .883
SMI3 4.65 1.48 .888
SMI4 4.77 1.39 .854
T T1 4.68 1.21 .903 .898 .937 .832
T2 4.64 1.31 .955
T3 4.43 1.30 .877
A A1 5.20 1.26 .919 .921 .950 .864
A2 5.33 1.33 .939
A3 5.08 1.34 .930
C C1 5.03 1.43 .821 .822 .893 .736
C2 5.24 1.50 .907
C3 5.00 1.47 .845
I I1 5.39 1.35 .919 .884 .929 .766
I2 5.50 1.35 .947
I3 5.07 1.44 .837
Factor loadings are significant at level p<0.001.
According to Henseler et al. (2015), Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratio is lower than
0.85 (see Table 4 for the figures in parentheses) and the upper confidence bounds
(97.5%) is less than one. In addition, Fornell-Larcker criterion analysis shows the
same results. The bold figures in Table 4 are the square roots of AVE of constructs,
which are greater than their correlations with any other construct. These results
indicate satisfactory discriminant validity of the reflective measurement models.
Table 4 Fornell-Larcker criterion analysis and HTMT ratios
A I IP C SN T SMI E
A .929 .626
I .684
(.757) .902 .482
IP .449
(.477)
.379
(.410) .841 .282
C .553
(.627)
.620
(.714)
.372
(.420) .858 .388
SN .432
(.465)
.439
(.495)
.553
(.626)
.300
(.330) .894 .275
T .286
(.314)
.414
(.469)
.279
(.296)
.319
(.368)
.337
(.371) .912 .171
SMI .259
(.285)
.237
(.271)
.579
(.639)
.169
(.200)
.402
(.438)
.432
(.478) .875 .243
To avoid misspecification of formative measurement model, the study performs
confirmatory tetrad analysis in PLS (CTA-PLS) which is an empirical means to
11
evaluate whether the measurement model specification based on theoretical reasoning
is also supported by the data (Rigdon, 2005). Given the null hypothesis in CTA-PLS
that tetrad equals zero, one cannot confirm a reflective specification because null
hypothesis can never be accepted, whereas formative specification can be confirmed
by the statistical test. First, we checked indicator correlations in the measurement
model as Hair et al. (2017) suggest. The results show that indicators of E have
minimum correlations of 0.570, which is clearly different from zero. Thus it is
safeguarded that CTA would not be meaningless. Next, we ran CTA for bootstrapping
subsamples, and the results are shown in Table 5. CIadj indicates 90% bias-corrected
and Bonferroni-adjusted bootstrap confidence intervals. Tetrad 1 and 2 has significant
value and zero is not included in lower and upper boundary of CIadj. Thus, the null
hypothesis of CTA-PLS is rejected. These results substantiate that E is indeed
formative, providing support for the theoretical reasoning.
Table 5 CTA-PLS Results Formative Construct Tetrad Tetrad value p value CIadj
E 1: E1, E2, E3, R4 .223 .006 (.068, .384)
2: E1, E2, E4, R3 .197 .025 (.027, .370)
Table 6 shows the assessments of formative model E. Variance inflation factor (VIF)
are all below 5 and thus indicates that no multicollinearity occurs. Two indicators
have insignificant weights whereas their loadings are both above 0.50, so they are
retained in the measurement model and are interpreted as absolutely important
indicators (Hair et al., 2017).
Table 6 Assessment of formative construct E
Construct Items Weights Loadings VIF
E E1 .614** 2.642
E2 .035 ns .811 2.768
E3 .104 ns .743 2.335
E4 .359* 3.009
*p<0.01, **p<0.001, ns indicates nonsignificant.
3.5 Assessment of structural model
Figure 1 shows the results of the SEM analysis. All the path coefficients are
significant at least at the level of p<.01 except the path from interaction term of
education and IP to attitude. Therefore, except H1 and H2a, all the hypotheses
regarding direct effects are empirically supported. As R2 indicates, 59.2% variance of
purchase intention is explained by attitude, intersubjective perception, subjective
norm and perceived behavior control. Social media use intensity explains 38.8%
variance of intersubjective perception and 21.1% variance of subjective norm
respectively. Together with intersubjective perception, expectation explains 48.3%
variance of attitude.
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Figure 1 Structural model assessment
Effect size is shown in Table 7. The first row indicates endogenous variables and the
first column from left indicates their respective predictors. According to the
guidelines for assessing effect size f2 (Cohen, 1988), social media use intensity and
expectation has large effect on intersubjective perception and attitude respectively,
while social media use intensity, intersubjective perception and attitude have medium
effects on subjective norm and attitude respectively. Both attitude and perceived
behavior control have medium effects on purchase intention.
Table 7 Effect size f2
SN IP A I
SMI .192 .505
IP .156 .002
E .512
A .268
SN .042
C .182
3.6 Mediator analysis
We analyze mediating effect of attitude according to (Nitzl et al., 2016; Hair et al.,
2017). As shown in Table 8, the indirect effect is significant. Since H1 is not
empirically supported, there is an insignificant direct effect of intersubjective
perception on purchase intention. That is, attitude fully mediates intersubjective
perception’s effect on purchase intention. Thus, H3 is supported.
Table 8 Results of mediator analysis Indirect
effect
95% confidence
interval of indirect
effect
p Direct
effect
95% confidence
interval of direct
effect
p
IP I .131 (.075, .194) .000 -.034 (-.132, .064) .506
4. Results
13
There are 3 hypotheses proposed according the theory of planned behavior, namely
the effects of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavior on purchase intention
(H6, 7 and 8), and they are supported in the study. Parental expectation of ECE
program demonstrates a strong effect on attitude. Second, we find social media use
intensity has a large impact on intersubjective perception whereas it has a medium
effect on subjective norm. Further, these relationships are both positively moderated
by parental trust in information and contents in social media. Third, attitude plays a
mediating role in the effect of intersubjective perception on purchase intention so that
the possible direct effect disappears. Besides, as proposed in H8a, education
negatively moderates the effect of subjective norm on purchase intention while there
is no empirical evidence that it also moderates the effect of intersubjective perception
on attitude. In general, we provide empirical evidence on the effect of digital peer
pressure on purchase intention.
5. Discussions
5.1 Theoretical implications
Instead of directly examining peer pressure, this study explores an intersubjective
approach to illustrate its effect on purchase behavior. This approach not only
demonstrates validity and reliability, but also confirms the underlying mechanism of
peer pressure’s effect on purchase intention, that is, high social media use intensity
may lead to parent’s perception that most people in the community or group would
purchase ECE program for their children. Meanwhile, social media use intensity also
predicts subjective norm, though with lower effect size. Since a couple of specific
subjects (e.g. family, friends, and relatives) are indicated when measuring focal
person’s subjective norm (Lin 2007), the pressure generated from subjective norm is
closely linked to these specific subjects. By contrast, no specific referent is intended
for when measuring intersubjective perception. The stronger effect of social media
use on intersubjective perception implies that social media tends to generate pressure
that may not be attributed to a specific person, or group of people the focal person is
familiar with, but rather vague or indefinite peers.
Compared to subjective norm directly influencing purchase intention, intersubjective
perception fails to directly predict purchase intention; instead it calls forth purchase
intention through strengthening attitude. That is, intersubjective perception initiates a
subtle influence on attitude formation or modification, which further affects purchase
intention. Although both intersubjective perception and subjective norm pertain to
peer pressure in the purchase decision-making process, they have distinct influential
mechanisms: subjective norm has been confirmed in numerous studies (including the
present one) that it is able to directly predict purchase intention, whereas
intersubjective perception exerts its effect by modifying individual’s attitude. It
implies that intersubjective perception has a stronger internalization effect than
subjective norm does. When peer influence reinforces individual’s current attitude or
possibly reverses it toward the direction the majority endorses, the purchase intention
would seem to be justified. On the other hand, intersubjective perception does not
result in a compliance effect in the present study due to the insignificant direct effect
on purchase intention. We hence infer that subjective norm and intersubjective
perception show distinct features in terms of their effects on behavioral intention,
though both of them jointly capture digital peer pressure.
14
Unexpectedly, education level in this study has no moderating effect on the
relationship between intersubjective perception and attitude. In other words,
intersubjective perception has the same effect size for both well-educated and low-
educated parents. Under the same level of intersubjective perception, even well-
educated parents would equally modify or reinforce their attitude toward ECE
program. This finding is however different when parents are under the same level of
subjective norm. That is, the influence of intersubjective perception tends to be more
irresistible than subjective norm, though both of them pertain to social influence. On
the other hand, subjective norm is not always a good predictor of behavioral intention
when the important referents are not concerned with the purchase decision of the focal
person in some situations, thus, peer pressures may not be perceived (Terry and Hogg,
1996). To address this problem of subjective norm, this study accordingly
recommends using an intersubjective approach to make sense of behavioral intention.
5.2 Practical implications
This study again confirms that Wechat is a powerful marketing platform in China. We
first recommend ECE program vendors to improve the trustworthiness of their official
accounts in Wechat, probably via official authentification, spreading parenting
knowledge in an academic style, word-of-mouth etc. Second, the findings may
promote a precision social media marketing of ECE program. Since social media use
has a conversion rate (to purchase behavior) of .077 and .067 via intersubjective
perception and subjective norm respectively, the former is marginally more effective.
Nevertheless the well-educated parents may be immune to this effect to some extent
due to the significant moderating effect of education level. To retain well-educated
parents, according to the findings, the vendors can resort to manipulating trust.
Among aforementioned tactics to improve trust, spreading parenting knowledge in an
academic style, like embedded citations in the texts, may be a point for the well-
educated parents.
5.3 Limitations and future research
This study provides evidence that TPB can be valid in a user-consumer separation
context. However, the link between a parent and his or her child is so close that it can
be equated with a user-consumer integration context. In the other not-so-close
contexts, like gift giving, people tend to refer to their own preference for and belief of
the product in the purchase decision-making. Thus, to test the adaptability of TPB,
scholars can test the behavior of selection gifts with TPB.
Since intersubjective perception can internalize information from peers into
individual’s attitude, we further wonder whether intersubjective perception would
help to rationalize purchase behavior or people just immerse themselves in a self-
deceiving myth. We need to take a clear-cut stance regarding the effect of
intersubjective approach, because the announcement of this effect relate to a wider
population in China after the promotion of the two-child policy.
Mother accounts for 80% of the sample. On the one hand, this reflects the different
role of parents in parenting that mother concerns more about child in a direct way like
which ECE program to choose, while father in an indirect way, like money
investment in child’s education. On the other hand, this might lead to bias. To remedy
this potential problem, we will invite more fathers to the survey to rerun the data.
15
When evaluating perceived behavioral control, money, information and time are
equally weighted. However, there is a common wisdom among Chinese that it is
worth sacrificing their financial benefits to invest in child’s education. In this sense, it
is possible that money plays second fiddle to time and information in the decision-
making of purchasing ECE program when controlling for household income. Further,
under this common wisdom, are Chinese parents conscious of the effect of
intersubjective norm in their purchase behavior? And if not, can intersubjective
perception still predict actual behavior of purchasing ECE program? Answers to these
questions may provide avenues to thoroughly profile Chinese parents as consumers.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (Grant No. 1409105) and “The 13th Five-Year” Plan of Philosophy and
Social Science Development for Young Scholars in Guangzhou (Grant No.
2017GZQN17) for financial assistance.
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Appendix
Construct Item Scales
Intersubjective
perception
IP1 Most of Chinese parents would buy ECE program for their
children.
IP2 The typical Chinese parents would buy ECE program for their
children.
IP3 Most members in a parenting group would buy ECE program for
their children, and actively communicate in the group.
IP4 The parents, who frequently speak up and issue a call in the
parenting group, would buy ECE program for their children.
22
Subjective
norm
SN1 Most of the people who are important to me think I should buy
ECE program for your child.
SN2 The expectation is that I should buy ECE program for my child.
SN3 People whose opinions I value would prefer that I buy ECE
program for my child.
Social media
use intensity
SMI1 Acquiring parenting information from Wechat (Moments,
parenting group and official account) is a part of my everyday
activity.
SMI2 I feel out of touch with other parents when I haven’t logged onto
Wechat for a while.
SMI3 I feel I am part of the Wechat parenting community.
SMI4 I would be sorry if Wechat parental group were dismissed or
parenting-related functions on Wechat shut down.
Trust T1 The comments and information on Wechat are correct.
T2 The comments and information on Wechat are reliable.
T3 I am confident of the comments and information on Wechat.
Attitude A1 I think ECE program is meaningful for my child.
A2 I am favorable to ECE program.
A3 I like ECE program.
Perceived
behavior
control
C1 Whether or not I buy ECE program for my child is up to me.
C2 I am confident that if I want, I can buy ECE program for my child.
C3 I have time, money and information to buy ECE program for my
child.
Purchase
intention
I1 I am willing to buy ECE program for my child.
I2 I want to buy ECE programs for my second child if possible.
I3 I hope to buy more ECE program for my second child if possible.
Expectation of
ECE program
E1
E2
E3
E4
I expect ECE program to develop intelligent ability of my child.
I expect ECE program to promote my child’s physical
development.
I expect ECE program to foster my child’s emotion development.
I expect ECE program to shape my child’s character.
