The Effect of Fluid Compensation on Group Members' Satisfaction after Concessions

Huang Jing; Wang Hao; Wang Zhengrong

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240118

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (1) : 151-160. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240118

Social, Personality & Organizational Psychology

The Effect of Fluid Compensation on Group Members' Satisfaction after Concessions

Huang Jing¹, Wang Hao¹, Wang Zhengrong²

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Abstract

Groups are becoming increasingly important contexts for people to make consumption decisions and behaviors, and consumers often complete consumption choices as group members. It is worth noting that group members may have different preferences for a product, and those who disagree with the majority may sacrifice their preferences and make consumption choices consistent with the group they identify with. This phenomenon is called concessions. Concessions lead to lower post-decision satisfaction and even harm subsequent consumption behavior and group behavior. Because the dissatisfaction of concessionaries is rooted in the fact that some attributes of the product do not satisfy their own needs, we classify the concessions of group members into concessions to hedonic attributes and concessions to utilitarian attributes. According to the Fluid Compensation Theory, when the current product attribute does not meet consumption expectations, people are more likely to seek and affirm another irrelevant attribute to indirectly eliminate the dissatisfaction after concessions with new purchase reasons. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate whether fluid compensation of utilitarian information can improve the post-concession dissatisfaction when group members concede because the product's hedonic attribute does not meet the demand. We also examined how compensation of hedonic information affects the satisfaction of conceders when group members concede because they do not like the product's utilitarian attribute. The mediating mechanisms and moderating variables are further explored.
To support the hypothesis of fluid compensation on product satisfaction after concessions, this study first collected some secondary data of consumer reviews in a group consumption scenario. Reviewers indicated that they initially did not want to participate in group consumption because of the hedonic attributes of the target product, and were impressed by the utilitarian attributes after going to the consumption in order to fit in the group, which alleviated the post-decisional dissatisfaction. This was initial evidence of the main effect. Three experiments were then conducted to further explore the main effect, mediating effect, and moderating effect. A concession scenario was first set up, in which subjects did not like the crowd-favored product because their hedonic or utilitarian preferences were different from the group, and then compensated for the hedonic or utilitarian attributes after the subjects chose to concede, followed by measurement of variables such as product satisfaction and certainty.
Experiment 1 supported the main effect where compensation for utilitarian (vs. hedonic) information led to higher (vs. lower) product satisfaction when group members conceded to hedonic attributes, while compensation for utilitarian and hedonic information had no difference on product satisfaction when group members conceded to utilitarian attributes. Experiment 2 supported the mediating effect of certainty. That is, compensation for utilitarian information led to higher product satisfaction through higher certainty compared to hedonic information when group members conceded to hedonic attributes, while compensation for hedonic information led to no significant increase in product satisfaction through lower certainty compared to utilitarian information when group members conceded to utilitarian attributes. Experiment 3 supported the moderating effect of perceived similarity, where perceived similarity in in-group hedonic preferences leads to higher product satisfaction through increased certainty in hedonic compensation (vs. utilitarian compensation) after concessions to utilitarian attributes.
According to our study, fluid compensation based on product hedonic and utilitarian attributes mitigates dissatisfaction after concessions and also validates the mediating effect of certainty and the moderating effect of perceived preference similarity. The findings add new improvement strategies to the concession phenomenon of group consumption, applying psychological theory to the marketing field to solve real-world problems. This study suggests that marketers should mention the utilitarian attributes of the product while communicating the hedonic value of the product to the group; when promoting utilitarian products with hedonic compensation to the group, they need to pay attention to whether the group's hedonic preferences for the target product are similar.

Key words

concessions / hedonic/utilitarian information compensation / certainty / perceived similarity / product satisfaction

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Huang Jing, Wang Hao, Wang Zhengrong. The Effect of Fluid Compensation on Group Members' Satisfaction after Concessions[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(1): 151-160 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240118

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