Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
4937339 | Computers in Human Behavior | 2017 | 38 Pages |
Abstract
This study examined the relationship between motivational conflict involving social media use and attitude formation in a brand crisis situation. An online experiment was conducted with 658 participants using a 2 (news-article valence: positive vs. negative)Â ÃÂ 2 (situational cue valence: positive vs. negative) between-subjects design. During the experiment, participants loyal to Chick-fil-A (defense-motivated) were asked to communicate the brand through the brand's social networking sites (SNSs) while receiving a cue for the SNS audience's general unfavorable opinions on the crisis issue, the Chick-fil-A same-sex marriage controversy (impression-motivated). It was found that when motivational conflict was experienced (defense vs. impression), (1) individuals' brand attitudes were affected more by objective information such as a news article than by a cue for audience opinion and (2) their positive brand-related cognitions were countervailed by their impression-related cognitions. Overall, the findings suggest that it is not always desirable for a company to encourage customers to engage in SNS-facilitated interaction in a crisis situation.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Computer Science
Computer Science Applications
Authors
Kyongseok Kim, Jooyoung Kim, Leonard N. Reid,