Indulgent Consumption Signals Interpersonal Warmth

Abstract

People who engage in indulgent consumption often are viewed as having poor self-control. In this research, however, eight studies provide converging support that indulgent consumption can have a positive effect: signaling interpersonal warmth. Specifically, consumers who post indulgent (vs. healthy) consumption content on social media are perceived as warmer (Study 1). The effect occurs because consumers believe that indulgent consumption is what people genuinely prefer, so indulgent (vs. healthy) consumption seems more authentic, and authenticity mediates the effect of indulgent consumption on perceived warmth (Studies 2a and 2b). Providing additional support for the authenticity mechanism, we show that the positive effect of indulgent (vs. healthy) consumption on perceived warmth is attenuated when the indulgent content is sponsored, which casts doubt on its authenticity (Study 3). We further show that sharing indulgent consumption can increase the appeal of a service provider among consumers who are seeking a warm service provider but it occurs only when the content is not sponsored (Studies 4a and 4b). Finally, the effect of sharing indulgent (vs. healthy) consumption has downstream consequences for audience engagement on Instagram (Studies 5a and 5b). This research sheds light on how to cultivate interpersonal warmth in marketing communication and personal branding.

Sharing luxury consumption on social media platforms: Motive inferences and downstream consequences

“…These findings dovetail with research findings showing that cues of self‐presentation trigger negative interpersonal outcomes both in face‐to‐face interactions (Valsesia et al, 2021) and interactions on social media platforms (Valsesia & Diehl, 2022). In contrast, cues indicating that people are expressing their true selves lead to positive interpersonal outcomes (Jung et al, 2023; Tang et al, 2022). In conclusion, this research provides evidence that when people share luxury (vs. nonluxury) consumption on social media, they are inferred to be driven by self‐presentational (and less self‐expressive) motives, which incurs social costs.…”

“…Next, the participants indicated how likely they would like, comment on, and share the blogger's posts on a 7‐point scale (1 = not at all likely , 7 = highly likely ; α = .81; Tang et al, 2022).…”

“…In the public context of social media sharing, observers are more likely to make inferences about the sharer's motives (Valsesia & Diehl, 2022). The presence of impression management concerns creates ambiguity regarding whether people are expressing their true selves on social media (Tang et al, 2022). The current research proposes that observers may resolve this ambiguity by using luxury consumption as a cue and inferring self‐presentational motives underlying the posts.…”

“…This research provides practical implications for influencers who want to be successful in engaging consumers. Influencers may encounter a tension between creating content (e.g., luxury consumption; Cannon & Rucker, 2019) that signals status (which increases audience size) and creating content (e.g., indulgent consumption; Tang et al, 2022) that signals authenticity (which increases audience engagement). To the extent that SMI followers highly value influencers' motivations and authenticity (Audrezet et al, 2020), SMIs need to be cautious about posting luxury consumption, especially wealth‐based luxury consumption.…”

Expressing passion for luxury enhances perceived authenticity

“…Increased perceptions of authenticity tend to make one seem warmer (Cheshin et al, 2018; Grandey et al, 2005), whereas being seen as misrepresenting one's true self reduces perceived friendliness and kindness (Samper et al, 2018). This is because people infer warmth from the perceived intentions or motives of others (Fiske et al, 2007), and an authentic individual with no hidden or suspicious intent is assumed to be benign and thus seen as warm (Berger & Barasch, 2018; Tang et al, 2022). Second, heightened perceptions of authenticity will enhance the perceived trustworthiness of luxury consumers.…”