Power and Resistance to Social Influence: The Moderating Role of Attitude Certainty

A consistent finding in consumer research is that attitudes toward products, services, and consumption in general can be influenced by other people’s opinions (e.g., Bearden and Etzel 1982). Nonetheless, recent studies suggest that power may play an important role in determining how people respond to social influence (Galinsky et al. 2008). This line of research maintains that power increases consumers’ reliance on their own attitudes, and leads to evaluations that are largely unaffected by the opinions of others. In the present research, we propose that while power indeed enhances resistance to social influence, it is likely to produce different resistance outcomes, depending on the degree of certainty with which consumers hold their attitudes.