An article published this month in the premiere CB journal, the
Journal of Consumer Research, is totally relevant to the material we've been discussing in class recently.
Here's the opening paragraph:
Stephanie, a first-year MBA student, is shopping for a new suit to wear
to her internship
interviews. She finds a suit she likes and decides to
try it on. As she approaches the dressing
room, she sees another
customer standing in front of a three-way mirror wearing the same suit
she has in her hands. The customer is beautiful and looks stunning in
the suit. Stephanie tries on
the suit, is not satisfied with how it
looks on her, and decides to keep looking at another store.
The question we examine in the current research is whether or not Stephanie’s
evaluations of the
suit would have been different had she not seen the
other customer wearing it and what factors
might influence this
social comparison process.
From "Social Information in the Retail Environment: The Importance of Consumption Alignment, Referent Identity, and Self-Esteem," by Darren W. Dahl, Jennifer J. Argo, Andrea C. Morales
If you're on campus, you should be able to link to the
full-text article seamlessly. If you're off-campus (or if the on-campus link is sticky), you can access it through our wonderful
library website (note: you have to log into the lib site to have access to any paid-for material).
********
