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Social exclusion is a common but threatening experience of being rejected, isolated or having a friendship or romantic relationship end. Previous research suggest that social exclusion influences subsequent consumer behavior. Observations across various industries indicate that companies use social exclusion through their ads to promote self-improvement product which featured improving people’s performance. The research thus examines how social exclusion affects self-improvement product consumption. Boundary conditions associated with implicit self-theory and self-construal are considered.
In Study 1, the moderating effect of implicit self-theory is examined. The results indicate that compared with people who feel socially excluded, those who feel socially included are more likely to choose a self-improvement product. When being excluded, consumers with incremental belief are more likely to choose self-improvement product than those with entity belief. When being socially included, there is no such difference between people with incremental belief and entity belief consumers.
In Study 2, the moderating effect of self- construal is examined. When being socially excluded, consumers with interdependent self-construal are more likely to choose self-improvement product than those with independent self-construal. When consumers feel socially included, there is no such difference between people with independents and interdependents. This research provides managerial implications for marketers to promote self-improvement products by using the right combination of social relationship and self-construal or implicit self-theory belief.
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