Peter H. Reingen

Sociocognitive Analysis of Group Decision Making among Consumers

A sociocognitive perspective is developed to further the understanding of the relation between cognitive and social processes. The approach combines social network analysis with a cognitive network perspective to enable the researcher to study how social structure influences cognitive structure and how shared cognitive structure influences choice. This perspective is applied to how a group (with several subgroups) makes a consumer decision with consequences for the entire group. The results show that social structure influences cognitive structure, that shared knowledge is related to choice, and that the sociocognitive perspective provides new insights to prior literature on group decision making and the relation between group membership and brand choice. Copyright 1990 by the University of Chicago.

Social perception and interpersonal influence: Some consequences of the physical attractiveness stereotype in a personal selling setting

Several effects of the physical attractiveness stereotype were assessed in a personal selling context. In a series of three experiments it was established that: (a) More favorable selling skills are attributed to physically attractive salespersons than to their unattractive counterparts; (b) in simulated sales scenarios, buyers treat ostensibly attractive sellers more cordially and are more likely to yield to their requests than is the case for unattractive sellers; and (c) in actual solicitations for a charitable organization, attractive persons induce a compliance rate significantly higher than that induced by unattractive solicitors. Results of the experiments, which are consistent with extant literature on physical attractiveness, are discussed in terms of commercially inspired interpersonal influence.

Microcultural Analysis of Variation in Sharing of Causal Reasoning about Behavior

This article explores the relation of culture to consumption by investigating individual, social, and cultural sources of variation in the sharing of causal reasoning about behavior in two microcultures. The results suggest (1 ) the importance of intracultural variation in the study of culture, (2) differences between experts and novices as a robust source of this variation, (3) novel insights into the relationship between expertise and sociocultural phenomena, and (4) the potential for investigating attitude structure, categorization, and attribution as products of causal reasoning originating from cultural belief systems. The study also demonstrates the synergy created by diverse research methods. Copyright 1996 by the University of Chicago.

Functions of Dysfunction Managing the Dynamics of an Organizational Duality in a Natural Food Cooperative

We report the results of an ethnographic study of a natural food cooperative in which we found an inherent tension in its mission between idealism and pragmatism, and we explore the dynamics through which that tension was managed and engaged in day-to-day governance and activities. Insights from participant observation, archival data, semi-structured interviews, and surveys provide a detailed and holistic account of the intergroup and intragroup processes through which the co-op negotiated its dualistic nature, as embodied in its hybrid organizational identity. The findings suggest that the value of each side of the duality was recognized at both the individual and organizational levels. Members’ discomfort with the duality, however, led them to split the mission in two and identify with one part, while projecting their less-favored part on others, creating an identity foil (an antithesis). This splitting resulted in ingroups and outgroups and heated intergroup conflict over realizing cooperative ideals vs. running a viable business. Ingroup members favoring one part of the mission nonetheless identified with the outgroup favoring the other because it embodied a side of themselves they continued to value. Individuals who exemplified their ingroup’s most extreme attributes were seen by the outgroup as prototypical, thus serving as “lightning rods” for intergroup conflict; this dynamic paradoxically enabled other ingroup members to work more effectively with moderate members of the outgroup. The idealist–pragmatist duality was kept continually in play over time through oscillating decisions and actions that shifted power from one group to the other, coupled with ongoing rituals to repair and maintain relationships disrupted by the messiness of the process. Thus ostensible dysfunctionality at the group level fostered functionality at the organizational level.

Modeling individual preference evolution and choice in a dynamic group setting

Organizational buying and strategic marketing decisions often emerge from a messy process of belief accommodation and compromise. In a longitudinal field study, the authors investigate how the beli...

Social-structural foundations of publication productivity in the Journal of Consumer Research

This study explores the social ecology of publication productivity in the Journal of Consumer Research (Volumes 1 through 20). It examines the distribution of scholarly productivity as it relates to collaborative networks of authors. It is found that these networks resemble tree-like structures with successful scholars as their “trunks” and collaborators as the branches. Thus, we find structural effects of network centrality of authors on their individual publication productivity and of network density on network publication productivity.