Abstract: By searching out advice from others, Word-of-Mouths (WOMs) generated from Social Network Sites (SNSs) can exert important impacts on users’ product choices. Based on the difference of social relationships among SNS users, SNSs can be divided into two types: socially distant SNSs and socially close SNSs. Based on Construal Level Theory (CLT), we studied the effects of these two types of SNSs on consumers’ responses to WOM relevant to high/low level construal communication. A series of experiments were conducted to test our hypotheses. In experiment 1a and 1b, pictorial versus verbal reviews of products were used as WOMs relevant to high versus low level construal. Experiment 1a employed a 2 (SNS types: socially distant vs. close) × 2 (WOM types: high vs. low construal level) between-subjects design, and used SinaBlog vs. WeChat as socially distant vs. close SNSs. Experiment 1b employed the same design as experiment 1b, but manipulated socially distant vs. close SNSs using Zhihu vs. Q-zone. Results of experiment 1a and 1b showed that participants who were on socially distant SNSs were more likely to be persuaded by WOMs relevant to high level construal in comparison to participants on socially close SNSs, by contrast, participants on socially close SNSs were more likely to be influenced by WOMs relevant to low level construal than participants on socially distant SNSs. These results provide evidence for a congruency effect between SNS types and WOM types. In experiment 2, we further studied the mechanism underlying the congruency effect between SNS types and WOM types. We used the same design as employed in experiment 1a, and manipulated high vs. low level construal WOMs by emphasizing primary goal-relevant vs. incidental goal-irrelevant features of products, and used SinaBlog vs. WeChat as socially distant vs. close SNSs. To test the hypothesis, we conducted a moderated serial mediation analysis. The results revealed that the socially distant vs. socially close SNS induced a higher vs. lower construal level, which then interacted with WOM types which jointly impact processing fluency that in turn impacted purchase intention (such that in the high construal level WOMs condition, a higher construal level induced higher processing fluency, thus leading to higher purchase intention; in the low construal level WOMs condition, a lower construal level induced higher processing fluency, thus leading to higher purchase intention).This result confirmed the mechanism underlying the congruency effect between SNS types and WOM types, in which WOM types moderated the chain mediating effect between SNS types and WOM types by means of moderating the effect of construal level on processing fluency. Findings from this research make several important contributions. First, they contribute to the SNS literatures by providing valuable insights into understanding how the social distance of SNSs affects persuasions of WOMs. Second, they add key evidence to the CLT literatures by uncovering the process mechanisms of the congruency effect between socially distant/close SNSs and high/low level WOMs. Moreover, our findings also provide practical implications for marketers on how to most effectively motivate WOM communication in SNSs in order to generate optimal diffusion of product information.

Key words: social network site, social distance, word-of-mouth, construal level theory, processing fluency

摘要： 研究基于解释水平理论，探讨了不同社交媒体平台上口碑信息对购买意愿的影响及机制。结果发现：（1）不同社交媒体平台可以激发不同社会距离感；（2）接收高解释水平口碑时，社会距离远平台的用户购买意愿更高，接收低解释水平口碑时，社会距离近平台的用户购买意愿更高，平台类型与口碑类型在解释水平上匹配时影响力最大；（3）其机制是：口碑类型通过调节用户心理表征的解释水平对加工流畅性的影响，进而调节了“平台类型→解释水平→加工流畅性→购买意愿”这一链式中介路径。

关键词: 社交媒体平台, 社会距离, 口碑, 解释水平, 加工流畅性