Retail customers' self-awareness: The deindividuation effects of others
Introduction
An increasing number of studies investigate how the presence of other customers influences shopper behavior in the retail environment (Eroglu et al., 2005, He et al., 2012, van Rompay et al., 2012). Primarily, these studies focus on how other customers negatively affect shopping experiences. For example, previous work shows that fellow customers elicit evaluative concerns and cause negative self-conscious emotions (e.g. embarrassment) or even more severe social anxiety (Grace, 2007, Lau-Gesk and Drolet, 2008). Social psychology research suggests that the mere presence of others is a sufficient condition to increase the awareness of oneself as a social object and drive concerns about how other patrons perceive and evaluate one's own public self (Buss, 1980, Leary, 2005). The marketing literature also supports this notion. For example, Dahl, Manchanda, and Argo (2001) find that the mere presence of other shoppers affects purchasing embarrassing products.
While sharing the retail environment with other customers creates social evaluation situations, this research suggests fellow customers also mitigate evaluative concerns. The present research focuses on situations where the store's sales personnel are the primary social evaluation source. Customers often browse without immediate intention to purchase and no desire for salesperson contact (Xia, 2010). These customers often are reluctant to interact with salespeople. Observation by salespeople is likely to increase customer's public self-awareness: a state occurring when people focus on the impressions they make on others and usually causes emotional discomfort and behavioral inhibition (Buss, 1980). Deindividuation theory (Diener, 1980), suggests that other customers' presence in this situation provides anonymity and reduces the customer's public self-awareness: the deindividuation effect.
This research uses a laboratory experiment and a quasi-experimental field study to examine deindividuation effects to: (a) demonstrate the effects of other customers' presence on a focal customer's public self-awareness when the customer is exposed to undesired social evaluation by salespeople and (b) examine this effect's consequences on the customer's emotions and actual in-store behavior. This study offers several important contributions to the extant literature. The study is the first to examine deindividuation effects as an explanation for positive customer presence effects in retail environments. Results extend previous findings by showing that other customers are not always a focal customer's evaluative concern. In some cases other customers mitigate such concerns involving sales personnel. The paper also contributes to the literature by refining deindividuation theory. Across two studies, deindividuation effects occur only for low customer density. For high customer density, the results do not support the deindividuation effect. These results suggest a curvilinear effect consistent with prior studies of retail customers' emotions (Argo et al., 2005, Pan and Siemens, 2011). Further, this research demonstrates how different sources of social impact (i.e. salespeople and other customers) combine to affect a focal customer's retail experience. The results also provide managerial implications. Why do customers feel uncomfortable when shopping alone? Reducing customers' public self-awareness is likely to increase the time customers spend browsing in a store. The findings assist managers designing salesperson training and provide insights for recruiting new personnel. In addition this study's implications for store design suggest public self-awareness is dependent upon how exposed the customer feels. The customer service desk's location and the layout of fixtures and fittings are important to reduce this exposure.
Section snippets
Overview of related literature
Previous research shows customer's psychological and behavioral responses to retail environments are influenced by exposure to others. For example, the presence of fellow customers creates social awareness in shoppers. This awareness stimulates impression management behaviors to maintain or restore one's desired self-image (Argo et al., 2005, Lee et al., 2011). Such behaviors occur during social interactions and when exposed to the mere presence of others (van Rompay et al., 2012). Studies also
Participants, design, and procedure
Study 1 tested H1, H2 in a laboratory experiment. A total of 97 undergraduates (females = 56) were randomly assigned to a one factorial (other customer presence: zero versus one versus five other customers) between-subjects design. Three versions of a cartoon drawing of a clothing store were used as experimental stimuli, each displaying a salesperson in the presence of no, one or five other customers (see Appendix A for examples). Cartoon drawings have advantages over still photographs. First,
Study 2: Quasi-experimental field study
To add external validity to the findings, study 2 replicates study 1 in a real-world setting. In addition, study 2 tests the deindividuation effect of customer presence on customer's actual behavior. The theoretical framework suggests customer presence reduces the customer's inhibition of behavior through a mediational chain of public self-awareness and emotional discomfort. Buss (1980) conceptualizes behavioral inhibition as the tendency to escape from a situation. Following this
General discussion
This research is the first to investigate deindividuation effects in a marketing context and as an explanation for positive customer presence effects in particular. A laboratory experiment and a quasi-experimental field study support the notion that the presence of other customers can have deindividuation effects on focal customers in situations where the customer is exposed to unwanted social evaluation from salespeople. This important finding extends the literature on customer presence
Limitations and avenues for future research
As this is the first piece of theory-building work focusing on deindividuation phenomena in a retail context, it is not without limitations. One limitation is that potential moderators, such as type of customer present and size of store, were not investigated. For example, the presence of other customers, who are similar to or are friends of the focal customer, may be more effective in producing a deindividuated state than others perceived as dissimilar. Moreover, larger groups of similar
Managerial implications
This study has managerial relevance for salesperson training programs, recruitment of new personnel and store layout. Keeping customers browsing longer and hence increasing exposure to merchandise should be a priority. The approach–avoidance model (see Donovan & Rossiter, 1982) suggests customers will stay in an environment longer when they feel emotionally comfortable. Reducing public self-awareness is one way of reducing a customer's emotional discomfort. Training salespeople to consider
Acknowledgment
The authors thank Kathleen Manger for her help in developing the experimental stimuli.
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