Social interaction and low involvement products

Psychological and economic market models generally mainly concentrate on single individuals rather than taking their social interactions into account. This study targets social interaction in one specific domain: everyday food products. The aim is to find out whether these products are all low in involvement (as assumed before) and if social influence is a factor that contributes to the purchase decision. This study has found considerable differences in involvement among different food products. The authors also discovered differences in the susceptibility to informative social influence as well as in the size of different networks. Both findings have consequences for modeling: Firstly, when modeling the interactions among consumers one has to take the product into account. Secondly, if one can find different degrees of involvement, chances are that involvement is not the only variable that influences consumer-consumer interaction. The results suggest a need for further research on the visibility of products. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.