How Can I Choose Not Knowing What You Choose? The Biasing Effect of Context When Consuming With Others

Individuals frequently utilize the behavior of others as a guide for their own (Baumeister, Hutton, and Tice 1989). As a result, consumers often model their own opinions and behavior – including brand preference and choice – on the observed behavior of others (Bearden and Etzel 1982; Bearden and Rose 1990). Extensive evidence of such modeling behavior is found in the eating domain; research shows that individuals vary the quantity of food they consume based on the behavior of their eating companions, eating more when others eat more and less when others eat less (Herman, Roth, and Polivy 2003). We build on the modeling literature by exploring the manner in which individuals make social consumption choices when the behavior of others is unknown. In such cases, individuals lack an observable standard upon which to model their own behavior and are thus likely to search for cues from the consumption context that suggest how others are likely to behave. We posit that one such cue is the contextual positioning of the brand or venue in which the consumption episode takes place. We predict that in the absence of information about others’ behavior, individuals rely on contextual cues like a brand’s positioning to establish expectations for others’ consumption. For example, when others’ food choices are unknown, consumers may look to the venue’s health positioning to infer the behavior of others, such that at a less healthy venue they will expect less healthful food choices and behaviors and at a healthier venue they will expect more healthful food choices and behaviors. We posit that these expectations will, in turn, serve as standards for behavior in social settings. Importantly, we do not expect to observe this effect in the absence of others, as individuals are free from the evaluative concerns that drive them to behave in line with social expectations.