Consumers frequently express themselves by posting about products on social media. Because consumers can use physical products to signal their identities, posting about products on social media may be a way for consumers to virtually signal identity. The authors propose that there are conditions in which this action can paradoxically reduce a consumer’s subsequent purchase intentions. Five experiments demonstrate that posting products on social media that are framed as being identity-relevant can reduce a consumer’s subsequent purchase intentions for the same and similar products, as this action allows consumers to virtually signal their identity, fulfilling identity-signaling needs. Fortunately for retailers, the authors suggest theoretically and managerially relevant moderators that attenuate this negative effect on intent to purchase. These findings have important implications for how firms can conduct social media marketing to minimize negative purchase outcomes.

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The purpose of this study was (a) to explore the factor structure of a Spanish version of the Career Decision Scale (CDS; Osipow, Carney, Winer, Yanico, & Koschier, 1976) with Puerto Rican college students, (b) to examine the relation of trait anxiety to the identified dimensions of career indecision, and (c) to explore differences in anxiety and career indecision dimensions between career undecided students and subgroups of career decided students. Participants were 337 undergraduate students enrolled at a major private university in Puerto Rico. An exploratory factor analysis with the items of the Spanish CDS yielded four factors similar to those identified with the original CDS. In addition, results indicated that the identified dimensions of career indecision were positively associated with anxiety and that college students who presented as career decided were a heterogeneous group. The findings suggested that the Spanish version of the CDS may be a valid instrument to assess antecedents of career indecision among Hispanic college students and that some college students who identify themselves as career decided may benefit from career counseling interventions.

This research builds on the motivational aspects of identity salience, finding that social identities direct the allocation of attention in identitysyntonic ways. Drawing from identity-based motivation (Oyserman, 2009;Reed, et al., 2012) we suggest individuals use attention to enhance identity-fit; selectively focusing on cues and stimuli that are identity-consistent. In two studies we find that activating a social identity drives preferential attention toward identity-relevant stimuli. Using a novel paradigm, Study 1 demonstrates that individuals strategically focus attention on identity-consistent emotional stimuli, while also shifting attention away from identity-inconsistent emotional stimuli. Using a dot-probe paradigm, Study 2 extends these results to show that individuals allocate attention toward both emotional and non-emotional (semantic associates) stimuli that are identity-consistent, and away from those that are incompatible. Consistent with theories suggesting cognition and perception are constructed (James, 1890/1983) and that identities direct and influence meaning-making (Oyserman, 2009;Reed et al., 2012), we find that social identities drive attention allocation, with identity-consistent stimuli receiving greater attention; suggesting that an identity's sense-making begins with motivated attention toward perceiving an identity-consistent environment.

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