The Persuasive Role of Incidental Similarity- 30 Aug

8/4/2019 The Persuasive Role of Incidental Similarity- 30 Aug

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The Persuasive Role of Incidental

Similarity on Attitudes and Purchase

Intentions in a Sales Context



The Persuasive Role of Incidental

Similarity

Incidental similarity - chancesimilarities between individuals thatprovide little relevant information

(Burger et al. 2004).

– can play a role in social situations and can

increase liking, persuasion, and

cooperative behavior between individuals(e.g., Burger et al. 2004; Miller, Downs,and Prentice 1998).



Literature Review

• Need for Social Connectedness - is fundamental andhas been found to drive attitudes and behaviors in avariety of instances, (Baumeister and Leary 1995)

• Self-esteem - suggesting that people possess positiveassociations about themselves and prefer objectsrelated to the self, as there is a transfer of positiveaffect from the self to the entity that bears a similarityto the self

• Interpersonal Context - other motivations andoutcomes that individuals seek to pursue may be moreimmediate than the need to maintain self-esteem



Need of Belonging

Need for belongingness - where people striveto achieve social connection with those aroundthem

1. Companionship - need for empathy

2. Affiliation - support from important individuals

3. Connectedness - “the emotional distance orconnectedness between the self and otherpeople”



Social Connectedness and

Incidental Similarity

• Social connectedness - a fundamental

human motivation involving the need

to form and maintain strong, stableinterpersonal relationships

(Baumeister and Leary 1995).

– humans have an innate need to belong,

they are driven to establish and maintain

interpersonal bonds.



Social Connectedness

• The association created by simple

interaction or participation with

others (Heider 1958; Lee and Robbins

1995).

• Building a connection has been shown

to increase interpersonal attraction

(Arkin and Burger 1980).



Persuasiveness and Social Connectedness

• Feeling of connectedness should resultin greater persuasiveness (Burger et al.2001; McGuire 1978).

• Individuals give priority to processinginformation related to people with

whom they feel connected (Aron et al.1991), which could also lead to moreeffective persuasion.



Hypothesis

• H1: In an interpersonal sales context, anincidental similarity shared between asalesperson and a consumer will increaseconsumer attitude favorability and purchase

intention toward the service or productproffered by the salesperson.

• H2: Social connectedness felt by the

consumer toward the salesperson mediatesthe relationship between incidental similarityand consumer attitudes.



Limiting the Effect of Incidental

Similarity

• Valence of Salesperson’s Behavior - when theinteractions among group members arenegative, dissonance and disliking could turnthe survival advantage to disadvantage;

•Examples – when a sales personnel behaves in a belligerent

and obnoxious way, participants were morelikely to move their opinion away from thepersonnel if they perceived the personnel as

more similar to themselves, Cooper and Jones(1969)

– people are less willing to interact with a partnerwho has a history of mental disturbance whenthey perceive the partner to be similar versusdissimilar to themselves, Novak and Lerner(1968)



Managerial Implication

Observing a salesperson with whom

an incidental similarity is shared

exhibiting negative behavior would

decrease the need for connectedness

and lead individuals to distance

themselves from the salesperson.



Possibility of an Extended Service

Relationship

• Need for belongingness - an enduring andstable interaction, Baumeister and Leary(1995)

– A lack of frequent interactions between parties

means that the need for belongingness cannotbe meet.

• Incidental similarity will best be realized whenthe opportunity for social connection is

ongoing, that is, when a newly establishedrelationship has potential for continuinginteraction. e fully satisfied (Weiss 1973).



Managerial Implication

• The effects of incidental similarity will bebest realized when – when a newly established relationship has

potential for continuing interaction.

• Individual’s resistance to do what isasked is diminished when no futureinteraction with a socially similar personis anticipated (Andreoli, Worchel, andFolger 1974; Clee andWicklund 1980).



Hitesh Part from here



Hypothesis

• H3A: When an incidental similarity is sharedwith a salesperson who exhibits negativebehaviors, consumer attitude favorability andpurchase intention toward the service or

product proffered by the salesperson willdecrease.

• H3B: The effect of incidental similarity sharedwith a salesperson who exhibits negative

behaviors will be mitigated when no futureinteraction is expected between theconsumer and the salesperson.



Experiments that test hypotheses

•Study 1A tests for the effects of incidental similarity in aservice context and identifies the role of connectedness in theprocess (hypotheses 1 and 2).

• Studies 1B and 2 further validate the role of connectedness byboth measuring (study 1B) and directly manipulating (study 2)

social connectedness.

• Study 3 integrates the findings with previous research on therole of another relevant construct, self-esteem, in theincidental similarity effects and tests how these two motivesrear their respective heads under different circumstances.

• Study 4 identifies the importance of the valence of thesalesperson’s behavior and the role of expected futureinteractions with the salesperson in achieving a positive effectof incidental similarity (hypotheses 3A and 3B).



STUDY 1A - Introduction

The cover story was that the universityrecreation center was promoting a personaltraining program for potential gymmembers and needed feedback on their

program. After signing a consent form,participants were given a brochurecontaining basic information about theprogram and a mini biography of the

personal trainer. The short biographydescribed the trainer’s personalinformation, past experiences, and athleticachievements



STUDY 1A

• The key independent variable, incidentalsimilarity, was manipulated through the mini-biography.

• Manipulated incidental similarity through sharedbirthday.

• Thus, the first line of the biography showed thebirth date of the personal trainer.

• Obtained participants’ birthday informationthrough a general pre-survey of the participant

pool conducted 2 months before the study.• After participants were given sufficient time to

read the brochure, a confederate posing as thepersonal trainer from the recreation centerexplained the program, following a standardized

script.



STUDY 1A

• The key dependent variables were intermixed withquestions pertaining to the personal training program.

• Attitude toward the program was measured as an averageof two 9-point scale items: “like” and “helpful” (1 = not atall, 9 = very much, alpha= .65).

•

Purchase intentions were measured by two 9-point scaleitems: “interest in enrollment” and “likelihood to register”(1 = not at all, 9 = very much, alpha= .93).

• Participants also completed a six-item measure adaptedfrom the Interpersonal Orientation Scale that measuredhow connected they felt with the personal trainer on 9-

point scales (1 = not at all, 9 = very much, alpha= .88).• Representative items included “seem to share the same

interest,” “feel connected,” and “willing to talk about mypersonal life with her.”



STUDY 1A - Result•

Consistent with hypothesis 1, participants who shared the birthdaywith the personal trainer reported a more favorable attitude toward the

program (M sim = 6.92 vs. M nonsim = 6.37; t (55) = 2.03, p < .05).

• The existence of a shared birthday significantly increased an individual’s

intention to enroll in the program (M sim = 5.88 vs. M nonsim = 5.30;

t (55) = 2.04, p < .05).

• Participants who shared the birthday also reported a stronger feeling of connectedness (M sim = 6.33 vs. M nonsim = 5.54; t (55) = 2.39, p < .05)

• Analysis was conducted to test whether connectedness mediates the

link between similarity and attitude.

• They show that similarity is a significant predictor of attitude and

connectedness. In addition,

• connectedness is a significant predictor of attitude (t (54) = 3.84, p <

.001). When both similarity and connectedness are included in the

regression model for attitude, the effect of similarity becomes non-

significant (t (53) p < .92, NS), while connectedness remains significant

(t (53) = 3.37, p < .005).

•A Sobel test of mediation (Sobel 1982) confirmed the mediating role of connectedness ( Z = 1.95, p < .05)



Sumits Part from here



STUDY 1B - Introduction

• Study 1B seeks to provide furtherevidence for the articulated process byexamining individual differences in social

connectedness.• They hypothesize that individuals who

chronically feel connected to thosearound them would be positively

influenced by an incidental similarity cue• While those who are chronically

disconnected would be less affected.



STUDY 1B

•Sixty-one university students

participated in the study.

•Self Esteem -5 point scale items

•

Social Connectedness Scale- 6 pointscale items



STUDY 1B - Results

• Employed a linear regression on the state self-esteemindex with the independent variables incidentalsimilarity, self-esteem, the continuous mean centeredmeasure of social connectedness.

• Participants in the self-threat conditions reported alower state self esteem than those in the self-affirmation conditions (M threat = 3.88 vs. M affirm = 4.49).

Attitude and Intentions.

• We used multiple regression to examine the interactionsbetween incidental similarity, self-esteem, and thecentered individual social connectedness score onattitude and purchase intention (Aiken and West 1991).



STUDY 1B - Results

• The coefficient for the incidental similarity by socialconnectedness score interaction, as predicted, wasmarginally significant for attitude (t (52) = 1.81, p < .10, b= .87) and significant for purchase intention (t (53) =2.30, p < .05, b = .98).

•

The pattern of effects suggests that the effect of incidental similarity on attitudes and purchase intentionis stronger for individuals who chronically feelconnected with others.

• In the shared birthday condition, the socialconnectedness score predicted attitude (t (29) = 1.65, p <

.10, b = .40) and intention (t (29) = 2.10, p < .05, b = .68).• In the non-similarity condition, social connectedness did

not significantly predict the differences in attitude orintention ( p > .15).



STUDY 1B –

Results

Attitudes and purchase

intention for the personal

training program as A

function of incidental

similarity and an

individual’s social

connectedness level

(study 1b)



Sahils Part from here



Study 2 – Incidental Similarity vs

Need for Connectedness

• Individuals require a certain degree of social connectedness, but when thisneed is met, motivation to establish

further connections is diminished.• In this study we manipulated the

satiation level of the need to connect

with others to test whether it wouldmoderate the incidental similarityeffects observed previously.



Method

• 100 UG students at a university in somewest coast city participated.

• Age of participants was recorded.

•

A previous research done to satiate theneed to connect with others has been usedwith some manipulations.

• The manipulation consisted of a wordsearch task that was conducted under theguise of a different study.

• Participants were randomly assigned to asatiation or a non satiation condition.



• For participants in the satiation condition,the word search consisted of words relatedto feelings of connectedness (e.g.,

accepted, involved, included).• For the non satiation task, participants were

asked to search for words unrelated toconnectedness but still pleasant (e.g., smile,peace, amuse).

• A pretest was done and it was found thatparticipants completing the connectednesspriming task indeed reported a significantlylower need to connect with others than

participants completing the neutral primingtask.

• After the priming task, participants wereshown a video clip of a personal trainerintroducing the training program.



• A short biography of the trainer on the screen,with the first line of the biography indicatingthe trainer’s place of birth.

•In addition, we included measures of self esteem to explore its possible role as amediator or moderator of the similarity effect.

• Three sets of self-esteem scales were includedin the survey: (1) the 10-item Self Esteem

Scale (Rosenberg 1965), (2) the 40-item Self-Esteem Rating Scale (Nugent and Thomas1993), and (3) the 20-item scale measuringstate self-esteem (Heatherton and Polivy1991).

•The first two scales measure an individual’schronic self-esteem, while the third onemeasures the state self-esteem. Three differentself-esteem indices were created by averagingthe positive items and the reverse-coded

negative items.



Results

• Attitude and Intentions:- Interactioneffect of incidental similarity and the needfor connectedness on participants’ attitudesand purchase intentions.

• Participants in the not-satiated primingcondition reported a more favorableattitude and a higher intention to purchasewhen there was an incidental similarity,

replicating previous study.• In contrast, in the satiated condition an

incidental similarity did not lead to morepositive attitudes or higher purchase

intentions.



• Self-Esteem :- Multiple-regression was used for analyses

to test for both main effects of the centred self-esteem

scores and interactive effects of incidental similarity, socialconnectedness, and self-esteem on key dependent

measures.

• Study confirms the role of social connectedness in the

incidental similarity effects.

• By satiating connectedness, participants were no longermotivated to establish further connection, mitigating the

effects of a shared similarity.



•Both measurement and manipulation that the need to

connect drives the persuasive effect of incidental

similarity in an interpersonal sales context.•Study 1B ex-examined connectedness from an ability

perspective, showing that the incidental similarity loses

power for individuals who lack the capacity to receive

“appropriate empathy or understanding from peers or

society”. Study 2 approached the construct of connectedness from a motivation perspective and

showed that the effects of incidental similarity are

mitigated when an individual’s need to connect is

satiated .

•

Failed to identify a role for self-esteem in our context.Participants with different levels of self-esteem did not

respond to the incidental similarity cue in a differential

manner.



Arvinds Part from here



Study 3 - Self- esteem

• The studies reported thus far have established therole of connectedness in producing incidentalsimilarity effects but have failed to show a role forself-esteem.

• Brendl et al. (2005) showed that the name letterbranding effect was driven by the motive toenhance self-esteem.

• While self-esteem would likely drive the effects of a similarity between a person and an object, in aninterpersonal context its role might be suppressedin favour of a more immediate motive such associal connectedness.



• In this study we altered the sales context to amore common and frequently used service, e.g.,dental care, and created shared similarity eitherbetween the customer and the dentist(individual) or between the customer and theclinic (object).

• It was expected that when the similarity isshared with the dental clinic, a threat (but not anaffirmation) to self-esteem will lead to positiveeffects of incidental similarity.

• In this context, feelings of connectedness willbe less affected by the incidental similarity.

• In contrast, it was expected that when the

similarity is shared with the dentist(interpersonal context), the feeling of connectedness will increase, resulting in morefavourable outcomes regardless of the self esteem state of the participant.



Method

• 133 UG students participated in the study.

•Participants were shown a video clip of a dental careservice program that is expanding to their area.

• The video showed the dental clinic profile, whichcontained information about both the dentist and thedental clinic and contained the manipulation of incidentalsimilarity.

• Consistent with previous study, an Asian confederate waschosen to play the role of the dentist. Incidental similaritywas manipulated using participants’ birthplace.

• For participants in the similarity condition, we matchedthe birthplace of each participant to the birthplace of the

dentist or the initial location of the dental clinic,depending on contextual condition.

• For participants in the non similarity condition, theinformation was mismatched.



Method

• 113 samples were accepted.• To test the efficacy of the self-esteem manipulation, we

asked participants to rate seven statements from theHeatherton and Polivy (1991) state self-esteemquestionnaire, on a 5-point scale. An average of these

items created a state self-esteem index• Attitude toward the dental service was measured using

five 7-point scale items: Good, Favorable, Positive,Helpful, and Considerate.

• Purchase intentions were measured by two 7-pointscale items: “consider setting up an appointment” and

“likelihood to try” • Feelings of connectedness were measured on a 7-point

scale.



Results

Manipulation check:-• Participants in the self-threat condition reported a lower state

self-esteem than those in the self-affirmation condition

Attitude and Intentions :-

• In the non interpersonal condition, the interactive effect of incidental similarity and self-esteem was significant for bothattitudes and purchase intentions.

• For threat participants, an incidental similarity led to morefavourable attitudes toward the dental service and higher purchase intentions.

• For affirmation participants, the positive effects of the similarityon attitudes and purchase intentions were mitigated.

• In the interpersonal condition, self-esteem did not interact withsimilarity on attitude or purchase intentions. Sharing thebirthplace with the dentist increased both attitude ratings and purchase intentions toward the program regardless of self-esteem.



Results

Connectedness and Mediation Analysis

• Follow-up contrasts showed that participantsin the interpersonal condition reported astronger feeling of connectedness when there

was an incidental similarity, but in the noninterpersonal condition, sharing the similaritydid not affect their feeling of connectedness

• Mediation analysis confirmed that the feeling

of connectedness mediates the link betweensimilarity and attitude in the interpersonalcondition.



Deepika Part from here



STUDY 4

The role of two moderating variables in the process: the

valence of the behavior of the salesperson & extended

service relationship



Study 4

• Negative behavior on the part of the salesperson willmitigate the need for connectedness . However, thiseffect was mitigated when the social interaction was justa brief encounter.

• METHOD:

Utilized a 2 (incidental similarity: similar vs. non similar )*2 (relationship: brief encounter vs. enduring interaction

expected) * 2 (valence: non aversive vs. aversive socialbehavior) between-subjects design.

The script was the same as the one used in the previousstudies.

SAMPLE:151 undergraduate students. To test the efficacy of the valence of behavior and

relationship manipulations, we included two additional 9-point scale items at the end of the survey: “Do you thinkthe personal trainer is rude/polite?” (1 - rude, 9 - polite)



RESULTS

1) Manipulation Check:

• A 2 * 2 * 2 ANOVA on the measure of theexpected interaction revealed only a maineffect of the relationship manipulation.

• Participants in the enduring relationshipcondition reported that they expected tointeract more with the trainer than those inthe brief encounter condition.

• Participants exposed to the aversive endingreported the trainer to be ruder than those inthe non aversive condition.



2. Attitude and Intentions

• In the aversive condition, when participantsexpected an enduring relationship with the

trainer, incidental similarity led to morenegative attitudes.

• However, when no future interaction wasexpected between the participant and thetrainer, the negative effects were mitigated.

• Interestingly, in the non aversive condition,

sharing a birthday with the trainer increasedboth attitude and purchase intentions towardthe program.



ATTITUDES AND PURCHASE INTENTION FOR THE PERSONAL TRAINING PROGRAM AS A

FUNCTION OF INCIDENTAL SIMILARITY, RELATIONSHIP, AND THE VALENCE OF THE

PERSONAL TRAINER’S BEHAVIOR



3.Connectedness

• In the aversive condition, whenparticipants expected an enduringrelationship with the trainer, anincidental similarity led to a lower feelingof connectedness.

• When no future interaction wasexpected between the participant and

the trainer, the negative effects of theshared birthday on connectedness weremitigated.



DISCUSSION

• Aversive behavior on the part of the similar other causedparticipants to distance themselves and feel lessconnected to the other.

• The possibility for an extended relationship moderatesthe negative effects of incidental similarity.

• In the non aversive condition, results showed only

positive effects of incidental similarity—regardless of thenature of the relationship.

• Participants in the aversive condition reported morethoughts than those in the non aversive condition

• When the trainer was non aversive or the interactionwas brief, participants did not process deeply, suggestingmore heuristic processing of the incidental similarity cueand the sales experience.



CONCLUSION

•

After a sales promotion for a service programconsumers who found out that they shared the same

birthday or birthplace with the service representative

reported more favorable attitudes toward the

program as well as higher purchase intentions.

• There was reversal of the positive effect of incidental

similarity when the salesperson exhibited aversive

behaviors during the social interactions . However,

this effect was mitigated when the social interaction

was just a brief encounter.• The possibility of an extended service relationship

moderated the effects of incidental similarity when

the interaction was aversive.



Conclusion

• In non aversive conditions, an incidental

similarity increased attitude favorability and

purchase intentions even when the

interaction with the similar other was a brief encounter.

• Distinguish the role of social connectedness

from self-esteem and elaborate

circumstances under which one motivewould be a dominant driver over the other.



MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

• The power of cultivating similarity betweenconsumers and sales agents in situations aimed atgetting a person to engage in future activities withthe service provider.

In situations when the customer lacks expertise in

the area and the service is customized anddelivered over time, establishing rapport with aclient at an early stage is critical .An incidentalsimilarity can play an important role in this regard

It can increase customer confidence that they will

not be misled by the salesperson. It can make customers feel that they are special

and more familiar.



• PITFALLS TO BE AVOIDED:

Should be perceived to be coincidental andgenuine.

Creating misleading or fake similarities to beavoided.

Salesperson should balance the extent towhich they probe for information with theextent to which they share information aboutthemselves.

• FUTURE RESEARCH:

To study additional insight into the underlyingmechanisms of connectedness and self-esteem

To study incidental similarity as a continuous

rather than a binary variable.



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The Persuasive Role of Incidental Similarity- 30 Aug