The role of the social-identity function of attitudes in consumer innovativeness and opinion leadership

Abstract

Attitudes serving the social-identity function relate nonsocial objects (e.g., products) to social objects (e.g., people). As new products tend to be more exciting than old, familiar products, the authors suggest that these attitudes influence innovativeness and opinion leadership. Based on recent research on attitude functions and adoption of consumer innovations, this research examines the relationship between the social-identity function, innovativeness, and opinion leadership, in addition to expertise and involvement; the two traditional antecedents of innovativeness and opinion leadership. The results across two product categories show that social-identity function exerts a strong impact on innovativeness and opinion leadership.