社会比较倾向和群体认同对群际信任的影响——对品牌群危机过程的实证研究

The Influence of Social Comparison Orientation and Group Identification on Intergroup Trust:An Empirical Study on the Process of Brand-group Crisis

不同于以往对于品牌危机及其溢出效应的机理解释,文章关注于品牌群危机中的社会心理过程,依据群际关系理论,分析了危机中消费群体的社会比较倾向和群体认同对群际信任的影响。实证研究发现,在产品伤害或服务失败事件的启动下,消费群体成员的社会比较倾向和群体认同都会提高群体相对剥夺感,由此激化消极群际情绪特别是愤怒情绪,并破坏群际信任,引发群际关系冲突。社会比较过程成为除了群体认同之外,可以解释集体行动的另一理论路径。所得结论有助于拓展品牌群危机研究的理论边界,并启示管理方发展应对策略时应注意其中的社会心理变量。

Different from the restriction of previous explanations on brand crisis and spillover effect,this paper focuses on the social psychological process in brand-group crisis. Based on the intergroup relation theory,the paper analyzes the influences of social comparison orientation and in-group identification on intergroup trust. The results reveal that consumer-group members' social comparison orientation and identification will raise their sense of relative deprivation,which will exaggerate their negative emotions and destroy the intergroup trust. Therefore,social comparison theory would be another pathway to explain the collective action besides the overwhelming theory of social identification. These findings may contribute to expanding the frontier of brand-group crisis studies and evoke the brand-group managers to reconsider the social psychology variables in their post-crisis strategies.