구전활동이 전달자의 감정에 미치는 영향: 구전극성과 구전동기의 역할 = The Impact of Word-of-Mouth Transmission on Communicator`s Affective Responses: The Role of Word-of-Mouth Valence and Motive

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Despite its long tradition of research on word-of-mouth (WOM), little is known about the impact of WOM on communicators` responses as opposed to those of recipients. In the early literature, scholars were mainly interested in studying the critical role that WOM played in the diffusion of new products and in examining the influential effects that WOM had on various responses of its recipients(e.g., memory, involvement, attitude). They also suggested several moderators and explored potential mechanisms for those effects. On the other hand, some researchers identified what factors were related to or influenced consumers` intention to engage in WOM(e.g., satisfaction, market maven). To fill this gap in the literature, this research is to investigate how a communicator`s affect will change after compared to before engaging in WOM, using experimental approaches. Specifically, the present study differs from previous ones in (1) dealing with WOM which is more comprehensive post-purchase behavior than complaint, (2) focusing on emotions as a key determinant to a communicator`s post-WOM responses, (3) directly comparing satisfaction and dissatisfaction in a single setting, and (4) proposing the motive of WOM as a moderator. Findings from research on complaint behavior could provide some insights in understanding the research problem. For example, Nyer and Gopinath(2005) found that dissatisfied customers who made a complaint toward the company were less likely to spread negative WOM than those who did not. Also Tax, Brown and Chandrashekaran(1998) showed that if a company addressed complaints of dissatisfied customers in a fair fashion, their loyalty tended to increase (i.e., recovery paradox). Emotions were assumed to play an important role in affecting postcomplaint behavior in those studies(e.g., relief by venting). Thus, we employ emotional regulation as one of the theoretical underpinnings to derive our predictions. Emotional regulation refers to maintaining, expressing and controling emotional states(Gross 1998). It is based on hedonic principle; people are inherently motivated to maintain it when they``re in positive emotions or to recover it toward positive emotions if they``re in negative mood. There are two strategies for maintaining positive mood. First, people do avoid or do not pay attention to any information threatening current positive state. Second, they tend to recall the positive aspects of the event repeatedly(e.g., savoring). On the other hand, negative emotional recovery is closely related to the concept of catharsis suggested by Freud. He argued that psychological recovery could be obtained by venting negative emotions like anger. According to the clinical psychology literature, if an individual exposes the trauma or stressful experiences to others, his cognitive structure will be reconstructed, which reduces the frequency of intrusive thoughts. It is also known that just sharing their experiences with others provides certain benefits and value to people. However, they need to disclose or express their emotions in the communication in order to enjoy the recovery effect. The other relevant construct is accountability that can be defined as the internal expectation to justify individuals` behavior. Accountability also serves as social pressure or anxiety for people to manage their impressions in social contexts(Tetlock 1992). Individuals who feel accountable for their communication tend to follow more complex processing style. Drawing upon emotional regulation theory(i.e. affect maintenance and recovery effects) and the notion of accountability, the authors propose the valence of and motive of WOM as the determinants of the change that occurs to a communicator`s affective responses in the WOM context. The valence of WOM is directly related to appraisal of consumption experience as satisfaction or dissatisfaction, whereas the motive of WOM can be classified to be self-oriented or other-oriented. Self-oriented motives include managing one`s self-image and expressing emotions that consumers have experienced during their purchase or consumption. Other-oriented motives are that consumers engage in WOM to help their friends make the best choice. These discussions lead to the development of hypotheses. Specifically, if satisfied customers engage in WOM for self-oriented motives, they tend to attend to and express their emotions vividly during WOM. Then their positive emotions are reinforced and their self image can be boosted, which leads to increases in positive emotions. However, in other-oriented WOM, consumers would focus on objective information as opposed to emotional information. Moreover, they might feel accountable for the potential consequences of their WOM. These are likely to result in decreases in positive emotions after WOM. On the other hand, if dissatisfied customers engage in WOM by self-oriented motives, expressing and venting their negative emotions would give them the catharsis effect. Their negative emotions are likely to be reduced. For other-oriented WOM in which more factual information is transmitted, communicators would not get much emotional recovery. This combined with the elevated level of accountability would aggravate their negative emotions. We also propose that the amount of emotional disclosures in WOM and communicator``s perceptions of accountability mediate the change of emotions in WOM. We used a 2(the valence of WOM: positive vs. negative) X 2(the motive of WOM: self-oriented vs. other-oriented) X 2(time of emotions: before WOM vs. after WOM) mixed design with the first two as between-subject factors and the last as a within-subject variable. The main dependent variable was WOM communicator`s emotions. In the beginning, participants were asked to recall the most satisfied or dissatisfied consumption incidence that they had recently experienced (i.e., manipulation of WOM valence). And participants` emotional responses were measured about the recalled experience using a scale adapted from CES(Consumption Emotion Set, Richins 1997). An hour later, participants performed a WOM transmission task; they wrote a WOM message about their consumption experiences to their friends. In the instruction for this task, WOM motive was manipulated by using concrete examples of either self- or other-motives. After the WOM transmission, they completed the same scale used earlier for emotional responses. To test the main hypotheses, we ran separate analyses for each valence of WOM; repeated measures ANOVA was performed on the emotional responses with WOM motive as a betweensubjects factor and time of emotions as a within-subjects factor. The analyses produced a significant interaction between WOM motive and emotion time for both valence conditions. As to positive WOM, satisfied participants showed more positive affective responses after(vs. before) engaging in WOM if their WOM motive was self-oriented(4.61 vs. 4.97; F(1,46)=3.81, p<.10), whereas they revealed less positive emotions when their motive was other-oriented (5.01vs.4.57; F(1,46)=6.35, p<.05). As for negative WOM, dissatisfied participants`` emotions became less negative after(vs. before) WOM in self-oriented WOM(3.82 vs. 3.33; F(1,53)= 4.76, p<.05), whereas their negative emotions became stronger after other-oriented WOM(3.72 vs. 4.16; F(1,53)=4.77, p<.05). Regarding amount of emotional exposures in WOM as a potential mediator, first, participants tended to included more emotional expressions in the self- than other-oriented WOM(positive WOM condition: 1.74(self) vs. 0.96(other); F(1,46) =5.63, p<.05; negative WOM condition: 1.68(self) vs. 0.96(other); F(1,53)=7.02, p<.05). In addition, the mediation tests confirmed that the change of emotions could be attributable in part to how much a communicator expressed his feelings in the WOM transmission. The more he exposed, positive emotions became more positive, and negative emotions became less negative. However, accountability could not explain the effect as another mediator. The research findings provide a new perspective and knowledge for better understanding of WOM, and extend emotional regulation theory to the area of WOM. Emotional recovery effect in psychology has typically been examined in the context of strong private feelings like trauma. Our research demonstrate that similar effects could be observed for less intensive emotions like consumption-related ones. Moreover, we formally tested the mediation effects of emotional expressions, which had been mostly assumed in the existing literature. Lastly, we identified the motive of WOM as an important moderator that could be applicable for both positive and negative experiences. These findings also have several implication for managers. It is recommended that firms should not consider only generating positive responses from new customers(i.e., WOM recipient), but also exerting positive influences to existing customers(i.e., WOM communicator) in designing WOM marketing strategies. For example, firms should encourage satisfied customers to express their emotions vividly. Also, they need to devise reward programs for referrals to help WOM communicators relieve the psychological burden including accountability. In addition, appropriate venues or channels should be provided for dissatisfied customers to express their negative emotions easily without being exposed to other consumers.

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