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Author(s): Peter H. Reingen, Brian L. Foster, Jacqueline Johnson Brown, Stephen B. Seidman
Source: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Dec., 1984), pp. 771-783
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489067
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Brand Congruence in Interpersonal
Relations: A Social Network Analysis
PETER H. REINGEN
BRIAN L. FOSTER
JACQUELINEJOHNSON BROWN
STEPHEN B. SEIDMAN*
Previous studies dealing with the notion of brand congruence suffer from
questionable methods of group determination, suspect demonstrations of brand
congruence effects, and inadequate attention paid to types of social relation. To
overcome these shortcomings, the present study uses graph-theoretic social
network techniques to examine interpersonal relationships and brand choice
behavior in natural environments. The brand choices of individuals in a social
relationship were compared to those of unrelated individuals across various
products, types of social relation, and types of basic sociological structure (dyad,
clique, and 2-plex). While significant brand congruence effects were obtained,
they were clustered in a few products mediated by types of social relation.
Conspicuousness of the product, as traditionally defined, was found to be
insufficient to account for these findings.
T hat humans are influenced by others has long Although most research on social influence focuses
been a subject of interest to sociologists and on primary groups, manifestations of social influence
social psychologists. Since the classical work by Asch do not appear to be confined to them. For what can
(1953), much evidence has been produced that groups be construed as secondary groups, Burnkrant and
influence members' behavior (see Shaw 1976 for a Cousineau (1975), Cohen and Golden (1972), and
review), and it is not surprising that students of Reingen (1982) showed that the mere presentation of
consumer behavior have focused on social influence information about others' brand evaluations or behav-
to explain consumer product/brand choices (e.g., Ven- ior influenced subjects' responses to stimuli. Nor does
katesan 1966). The importance attached to the social social influence appear to be restricted to membership
influence of relevant others is also reflected in Fishbein groups. For example, Cocanougher and Bruce (1971)
and Ajzen's (1975, Chapter 7) behavioral intention found that socially distant groups (i.e., groups with
paradigm in its subjective norm component (see Ba- which a consumer does not regularly interact) can
gozzi 1981; Miniard and Cohen 1981; and Ryan 1982 influence consumers if consumers hold favorable at-
for recent research), and in marketing practitioners titudes toward the members or activities of that group,
who make substantial use of interpersonal influence and Carmon and Mannheim (1979) demonstrated the
scenarios in communications (see Hawkins, Best, and influence of nonmembership groups on the self-image
Coney 1983, Chapter 7; Lessig and Park 1978; and development of architects. The overall evidence there-
Zaltman and Wallendorf 1983, Chapter 6 for specific fore suggests that consumers may orient themselves
examples). to membership groups (primary or secondary groups)
as well as to nonmembership groups (e.g., aspiration
groups) in shaping their behaviors. These various
* Peter H. Reingen is Associate Professor of Marketing at the types of groups are commonly referred to in texts of
College of Business Administration, Brian L. Foster is Professor consumer behavior as reference groups when they
and Department Chair of Anthropology, and Jacqueline Johnson significantly influence an individual's behavior (e.g.,
Brown is a doctoral candidate in Marketing, all at Arizona State Engel and Blackwell 1982, Chapter 6; Hawkins et al.
University, Tempe, AZ 85287. Stephen B. Seidman is Associate 1983, Chapter 7).1
Professor of Mathematics, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
22030. The research was supported by a Faculty Grant-in-Aid to
the first author. We appreciate the helpful comments by William
' In many cases, reference groups lack the characteristics usually
Bearden, Richard Burdick, Larry Crosby, Mike Hutt, Jerome Ker-
nan, and an anonymous JCR reviewer. attributed to groups in the social-psychological literature. The term
(Continued p. 2.)
771
? JOURNAL OF CONSUMERRESEARCHe Vol. 11 December 1984
772 THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
That the second case is not an unlikely phenomenon important information on various types of influence
is suggested by Ford and Ellis (1980) who, in their and on when/why reference groups may affect buyer
replication study of Stafford (1966), found that at least behavior, by their very nature they only suggest the
four of their 10 groups had members who did not possibility of reference group influence, since no direct
know the other group members (p. 131).3 Also, Witt evidence is provided.
(1969, note 2) points out that his group selection
procedure may have yielded "groups" that were ref- Types of Social Relations. There is an additional
shortcoming in the literature which is common to
erents for the nominator but not for the other mem-
both research streams: the investigators assumed that
bers. It is unlikely that meaningful data are obtained
when there is substantial heterogeneity in the nature certain types of social relationships form the basis for
reference group influence. Friends, relatives, neighbors,
of the units due to the concept of group being poorly
or fellow students may or may not be the referents of
defined. In fact, in these previous informal group
an individual employed in brand decision-making for
studies, some groups may not have been groups at
the products examined in the Hansen (1969), Moschis
all-even under very relaxed conditions for what
(1976), Stafford (1966), Witt (1969), and Witt and
constitutes such a structure. A more appealing strategy,
Bruce (1970, 1972) studies. Similarly, an individual's
both conceptually and statistically (in the sense of
minimizing extraneous sources of systematic variance fellow workers may or may not be the appropriate
referents for pool tables in Bearden and Etzel's work
and error variance arising from an imprecise group
(1982, p. 187). It would seem advisable, therefore, to
definition), would be to assess brand congruence in
groups whose sociological and formal structural prop- examine brand congruence in basic sociological struc-
erties are systematically and precisely controlled. tures that arise from different types of social relation-
ships. One may find brand congruence for bread
Influence Assessment. A second major problem among family members, for example, but such con-
with several of the informal group studies relates to gruence is less likely in a group of acquaintances who
how informal group influence is assessed. Stafford play touch football. Thus, the type of social relation-
(1966), for instance, suggests that informal group ships under investigation may be an important pre-
influence is demonstrated when within-group brand dictor of brand congruence.
choices are similar, but when the groups vary among A second reason why an examination of the effect
themselves (p. 71). This may not hold in general. of type of social relation on brand congruence may
Consider the following scenario. All group members be important concerns the notion of brand visibility.
and all groups agree on the same brand "X." According In the traditional approach, a private product is op-
to the Stafford criterion, there would be no informal erationally defined as one used at a person's residence
group influence. Missing, however, are comparisons (Bearden and Etzel 1982, p. 186). Since brand con-
between persons who are in a group and those who sumption of such a product would not be socially
are in no group. In a second scenario, imagine that conspicuous, it is argued that purchasing behavior is
such controls are available. Suppose further that all largely governed by attributes rather than by influences
persons who are not in a group choose brand "Y." of others (Bourne 1957). However, there is a potential
The inferences about group influence resulting from problem with this traditional argument. It fails to take
the two scenarios would be diametrically opposed. We into account the effect of social interaction on brand
suggested that a more convincing case can be made visibility. Social relationships may channel opportu-
for or against the informal group hypothesis by com- nities for observation of brand choice, and they may
paring the brand choices within a group against the provide a stimulus for brand-related verbal commu-
choices of individuals who are in a different group nications. That is, social relations may make brand
and in no group. In short, informal group studies choice behavior visible even for "private" products.
which examine choice behavior only within/across For example, one may find brand congruence among
groups contain a serious design flaw: group influence members of a group of frequently interacting friends
is an intragroup phenomenon, so its presence or even for "private" products such as laundry detergent,
absence is not directly testable through intergroup kitchen soap, and refrigerators, which the literature to
methods (Ford and Ellis 1980). date claims are not subject to group influence (e.g.,
Assael 1981, pp. 332-333). Thus conspicuousness, as
Perceived Influence. Although the perceived influ-
traditionally defined, may not necessarily be a good
ence studies by Bearden and Etzel (1982), Moschis
predictor of brand congruence.
(1976), and Park and Lessig (1977) have yielded
OVERVIEW
3Perhaps this is a reason why Ford and Ellis (1980) failed to
replicate the Stafford data. Stafford (1966, p. 70) claims that his
groups consisted of women who were friendly toward each other Although group influences on consumer behavior
and who interacted among each other, but no direct data are are commonly judged to be pervasive (e.g., Zaltman
furnished. and Wallendorf 1983, p. 197), the previous discussion
774 THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
suggests that the evidence produced to date is less structure is finding a precise and general way of
than compelling and is sometimes even contradictory. representing properties of social structure. Some of
To summarize the arguments presented thus far, the the most promising results in this area have come to
previous literature suffers from: be called "social network analysis," which is being
1. Imprecisedefinition (determination)of groups carried out by researchers in sociology, anthropology,
psychology, communications, mathematics, and other
2. Questionablemeasurementof brand congruenceef- fields.
fects The basic ideas behind social network analysis have
3. Lack of a systematicattempt to examine the brand been present in social anthropology and sociology for
congruence notion across different types of basic many years in the writings of Radcliffe-Brown (1965),
structure (e.g., "true cliques" and other "clique- Nadel (1957), and others. In general, network analysis
like" structures) provides a formal and precise way of defining terms
4. Inadequate attention to the way congruence may like "relation," "clique," and "group""so that they
vary across differenttypes of social relationships can be applied unambiguously to data on populations
of individuals. Several formalisms have been adopted
5. A tendencyto see perceivedreferencegroupinfluence by social scientists, including various statistical and
as evidence for direct influence. algebraic techniques (see Burt 1980 and Knoke and
The most general goal of the present study is to Kuklinski 1982 for recent reviews). The most widely
address these shortcomings by examining brand con- used, however, is graph-theoretic.
gruence among individuals in empirical systems of In Foster and Seidman's (1981, 1983) graph-theo-
social relationships-what Radcliffe-Brown (1965, p. retic method-the one adopted here-graphs are used
190) called "the network of actually existing rela- to represent relationships among individuals. A graph
tions"-using recently developed techniques for social is simply a set of points, some or all of which are
network analysis. The study is exploratory in nature. joined by lines. In general, points represent individuals,
Although it was expected to yield important substantive and each line represents a relationship between a pair
insights, the emphasis of the research was on illustrat- of individuals it joins. Each graph represents a single
ing how the limitations in previous investigations can relation. A series of graphs may be used to represent
be effectively addressed with social network analysis. different relations by having the lines in each graph
Our primary goal was to make a methodological correspond to a specified kind of dyadic relationship
contribution to the study of consumer sociology (e.g., each line represents a friendship tie in one graph,
through an exemplary application of formal algorithms an employer/employee relation in another, and so
for network analysis. on). It is in these graphs that features of social structure
The overall research strategy was as follows: stated (including cliques and other groups) are defined using
brand choices (and preferences) of individuals in a concepts from the mathematical theory of graphs.
specified social relationship were compared with those To use this formalism in social research, it is
of individuals who were not in that social relation. necessary to identify patterns in graphs which corre-
The comparison was carried out across various types spond to meaningful sociological properties of the
of social relation (e.g., friendship, roommate) and society represented by graphs. There are many ways
across a series of tangible/intangible products (e.g., to do so; one could, for instance, see if a graph is
shampoo, TV show). Moreover, analysis focused on transitive or not, whether it is centralized or not, and
brand congruence within several kinds of basic socio- so on. The theoretical problem of interest here, how-
logical structures or groups. Before this analysis is ever, concerns whether or not membership in social
described in more detail, some general comments on groups such as cliques is associated with greater brand
the network analysis of social structure will be helpful. choice similarity, and the analytical task is to identify
subsets of graphs which correspond to meaningful
social groups.
Network Analysis of Social Structure In the Foster and Seidman (1981) method, such
groups and other social units are called basic structural
Anthropologists, sociologists, and other social sci- units (or BSUs); in their general, abstract form, they
entists have been concerned with precisely the kinds are called basic structures. An example of a BSU is
of methodological problems that arise in the consumer suggested by a widely used notion in sociology, the
behavior literature reviewed here. In fact, a classic clique. The first attempt to make a formal, graph-
problem in social science concerns the relationship theoretic definition of clique was by Luce and Perry
between individual behavior (e.g., individuals' social (1949), who defined a clique as a maximal complete
decisions) and social structure (e.g., the nature of the subgraph of a graph-that is, the largest possible set
social networks in which individuals find themselves). of points of a graph such that each point is tied by a
In many diverse contexts, a prerequisite to addressing line to every other point. Such basic structures-
the relationship between individual behavior and social maximal complete subgraphs-have several important
NETWORKANALYSIS OF BRAND CONGRUENCE 775
FIGUREA FIGURE B
ILLUSTRATIONOF MAXIMALCOMPLETESUBGRAPHS ILLUSTRATIONSOF 2-PLEXES
A G F C D E
C D
B C D E A B A B
NOTE: Maximal complete subgraphs are ABC, CD, and DEFG. These subgraphs are
NOTE: In the four-point structure on the left, each point is adjacent to at least two others.
complete, since each point is tied directly to every other. They are maximal, since the For the five-point structure on the right, each point is connected to at least three others.
completeness criterion would be violated by adding any other point in the graph (e.g., if C
If C were adjacent to B in the structure on the left and E to A in the structure on the right,
were added to E, F, or G).
both of the structures would be cliques (i.e., 1-plexes).
mathematical properties that correspond to properties erties of k-plexes can be found in Seidman and Foster
of the sociological concept of clique, and representa- (1978a, 1978b). Most important, both the redundancy
tions of these basic structures in graphs of social and robustness of true cliques are retained, which
relations can thus be regarded as BSUs. makes it reasonable to see k-plexes as formalizing a
The properties of such structures that are of par- controlled weakening of the critical sociological prop-
ticular interest are, first, extreme robustness (i.e., erties of cliques.
removal of a point changes only the size of the unit, The present investigation examined brand congru-
not its structural properties), and second, great redun- ence within "true cliques" (called cliques from now
dancy of ties among individuals (i.e., an individual on) and 2-plexes in various social relations, with the
can be reached through different paths)-a fact of restriction that basic structures of either kind had at
obvious sociological interest in relation to social con- least three members. In addition to these basic struc-
trol, flow of information among members, and so on. tures, analysis was performed on dyadic relationships
From a practical analytical standpoint, it is important (called dyads from now on), whether or not they
to note that, using computers, rapid algorithms are existed within the cliques or 2-plexes. Although a
now available for identifying cliques in graphs. Figure reference group has been defined as "a person or
A illustrates maximal complete subgraphs in a larger group" (Bearden and Etzel 1982, p. 184), the literature
graph. extant is largely silent on brand congruence within
This concept of clique is extremely widely used, mere dyads.
but a number of problems have arisen in its application
(see Seidman and Foster 1978a, 1978b). One such
problem is that the restrictiveness of the completeness Expectations
criterion often means that few interesting cliques are Although the study was exploratory in nature and
found even in relatively dense networks. Seidman and no specific hypotheses were advanced for each cell of
Foster developed one way of relaxing this property to the overall design, it was guided by several general
provide for "weaker" clique structure by formalizing expectations. First, significant brand congruence effects
the principle that each point is connected to almost were expected; while the previous evidence was judged
every other point.4 They define a structure called a to be less than compelling on several grounds, it points
k-plex, which is a basic structure with n points such in that direction. Second, as already discussed, the
that each point is adjacent to at least n - k others. presence or absence of brand congruence depends on
Thus in a 2-plex with five points, each point must be the type of social relation under investigation, so
connected to at least three others, but each point is brand congruence effects were expected to occur in
not connnected to every other point. The k-plex appropriate relations for "private" as well as "public"
notion is a generalization of the clique concept, since products, with "public" and "private" being tradition-
a "true clique" (i.e., complete subgraph) is a special ally determined (e.g., by Bearden and Etzel 1982)
case of k-plexes (where k = 1). Figure B illustrates through a pretest.
2-plexes. A full treatment of the mathematical prop-
METHOD
4Another attemptat "loosening"the cliquestructurewasproposed To address the problems we have identified in the
by Alba (1973) in his diameter-nclique scheme. See Seidman and
Foster(1978a) for importantsociologicaland mathematicaldiffer- brand congruence literature, an unusual kind of design
ences betweenthat scheme and the one employed here. is necessary, and this requires some tradeoffs among
776 THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
FIGUREC
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
Roommate AV./ v L
13,0,01 P X
Adjacent A X XX
[23,2(12),0] P XA _Z__Z_I __Z ?1/__ -2 11 v-r7- ,11
Neighbor A _ _ x
E35,23(49),0] p _ xx Z- A A
Sports A _ A- - I- k_Z- PV VV PV kV
(I17,0,0] p _zz_zz_zZ_ _ z/ [/_z/ z // 1l l // I/ V / V/ 1l
Study A X __z_Z I1 _ A I / M
VI _
[21,0,3(9)] P z__Z__Z-_ZC Z- A _Z-_Z / I/ IA I I/ I1 V1 1
Meals A _ _ X x
[96,92(183),29(68)] P -
_ I I I I I
Bathroom A X I xx xx xx _ xx
[32,2(12),5(21)] p x XX
Party A
(62,15(59),16(51)J p _ x
Friend A IXXXX
[57,4(25),7(24)] P_
Problem A
[47,3(16),4(15)] P _
x =p C 0.0005
xx = P C 0.0001
NOTE: Products #1 through #6
were "private" products; products #7 through #16 were "public" products. Based on the pretest data, products are listed from most private to most
public. Products #1 through #4
and #12 through #16 deviated from the scale midpoint by at least 0.5. Numbers in brackets under relations show the number of dyads, 2-plexes, and
cliques, respectively. Numbers in parentheses within brackets show the number of pairs for 2-plexes and cliques, respectively. Empty cells indicate nonsignificant findings (p > 0.0005).
Diagonal lines in cells indicate no 2-plex or clique substructures. D = dyad, P = 2-plex, C = clique, A = actual brand, P = preferred brand.
formulations. The final selection of products was least one chooses the other) for several reasons. First,
governed first by the requirement that brand con- it is commonly found (as in the present study) that
sumption of each was likely to be visible in at least few if any social relations in a clique, for example,
one of the social relationships (e.g., bathroom/sham- are symmetric (i.e., that every person chooses each
poo, TV/roommate, beer/party). Second, the tradi- other). This may lead to unwarranted conclusions by
tional argument that greater brand congruence is ignoring structure present in a social system. Second,
expected for "publicly" than for "privately" consumed there is no compelling theoretical reason to assume
products was incorporated into the study by including that choices have to be symmetric for influence to
products which clearly fell (>3 ? 0.5) in either the occur.
private or public direction of the scale in the pretest The MATCOMP output was then submitted to
(see note for Figure C). It bears repeating that the STRUCT, which searches for cliques and 2-plexes.
traditional scaling of a product's conspicuousness was The details are unimportant for our present purposes,
undertaken primarily to illustrate its shortcomings as but for cliques the algorithm searches for sets of points
a predictor of brand congruence in the absence of such that each point is connected to every other point,
controlling social relations. As already discussed, effects whereas for 2-plexes it determines basic structures
were expected for "public" as well as for "private" with n points such that each point is adjacent to at
products, as determined by the pretest. least n - 2 others but not to every other point. The
data are output in a manner that allows each person
Data Analysis to be matched with the cliques (2-plexes) of which she
is a member. This information is then entered in an
After coding the data, analysis was performed with "attribute file" along with some basic demographics
SONET-1 (Foster and Seidman 1978; Seidman and and brand choices. These attribute files, along with
Foster 1979), a package of computer programs for an adjacency matrix of all ones, are input to a program
graph-theoretic analysis of social structure. The data called CAT3 which does a series of pairwise searches
for each social relation were first submitted to MAT- to determine whether or not each pair of individuals
COMP, which constructs a sociomatrix to represent is in a clique (2-plex) together, makes the same brand
the graph for each relation. MATCOMP then searches choice, and so on.
for connected components (i.e., largest possible The output of CAT3 is a subset of the adjacency
subgraphs such that any two of its points are joined matrix, containing ones only in cells where, say,
by a path) in the graphs. Relations were symmetrized common brand choice occurs. These subset adjacency
(e.g., persons A and B are in a social relation if at matrices are input to a program called STAT which
778 THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
transforms the data to make them suitable for cate- significant results were in the predicted direction. The
gorical data analysis. Our data did not lend themselves average raw effect (percent brand congruence for per-
to multivariate approaches to categorical data analysis sons in a BSU minus percent brand congruence for
(e.g., logit-type modeling) that would have enabled us persons not in one) was 28.9 percent across the
to draw inferences beyond what is reported here and significant findings (range: 11.8 percent for study/
to subject the brand congruence hypothesis to a stron- shampoo/dyad to 50.5 percent for friend/pizza/2-
ger test. The data were strongly nonindependent and plex). Overall, these findings support the expectation
unbalanced-e.g., many pairs were in the same BSU of significant brand congruence effects for several of
for more than one type of social relation, dyads in the cells in Figure C, even when stringent statistical
cliques formed a subset of the entire set of dyads, and criteria are applied.
pairs were in a clique for one social relation but in a Also in accord with expectations, significant product
2-plex for another. A large number of zero counts results appear to be dependent on the type of social
(when no cliques and/or 2-plexes were found) posed relation and type of basic structure (e.g., pizza/neigh-
an additional limitation. bor/2-plexes). Although we cannot be certain on the
It was therefore decided to separately examine the basis of the present data, this suggests an explanation
nonempty cells of Figure C through a series of 2 X 2 for the tendency of the brand congruence efforts to be
contingency tables, one dimension being "in a com- clustered in only a few products, e.g., TV show, pizza,
mon BSU/not in a common BSU" and the other and restaurant.
dimension being "common brand choice/not common
brand choice." The frequencies in the tables were Determinants of Brand Congruence Effects:
based on pairwise comparisons. Thus, the same unit Exploratory Analysis
of analysis was employed for each of the types of basic
structure, making statistical analysis more feasible. To address these questions, attention was focused
Statistical tests employing Chi-square were run sepa- on the extent to which the product and type of social
rately for each cell in the 10 (relations) X 2 (actual/ relationship affected the findings. Although formal
preferred brand choices) X 3 (dyad, clique, 2-plex) statistical procedures had to be largely abandoned at
X 16 (products) overall data matrix. A total of 960 this point in favor of a more descriptive approach due
tests was possible, but 736 were actually performed, to the data limitations already specified, this less
since for five of the 10 social relations no cliques or formal analysis yielded several important insights.
2-plexes existed. In the case of clique or 2-plex overlap
(when a pair of individuals was in more than one Conspicuousness Criterion. As expected, the tra-
ditional prediction that the most pervasive brand
clique or 2-plex for a social relation), a pair was
congruence would occur with the "public" products
counted only once.
does not appear to be consistent with our findings.
The previous literature suggests that brand congruence
RESULTS effects would be especially strong for "public" products
Figure C summarizes the (corrected for continuity) such as clothing and beer (Assael 1981, pp. 332-333)
Chi-square results of comparing the brand congruence as well as for wristwatches (Bearden and Etzel 1982,
of co-members and non-co-members in a specified p. 190). Yet, none of our findings were statistically
type of BSU in a specified social relation. Data dis- significant for these products: on the contrary, signif-
cussion and interpretation are restricted to those tests icant findings were obtained for "private" products
which were significant at p c 0.0005 or p < 0.0001 to such as shampoo and toothpaste. It would be difficult
guard against the increased probability of finding to argue that products such as shampoo and toothpaste
significant results due to the large number of tests.8 are more conspicuous across the various types of
social relationships than are products such as running
Brand Congruence Effects shoes, jeans, shirt/blouse, wristwatch, and beer, but
this is not to suggest that conspicuousness is unnec-
Of the 736 statistical tests, 26 were significant at p essary for brand congruence to occur. Products were
c 0.0005 and 13 of them were significant at p c 0.0001. selected so that their consumption was likely to be
Percentage differences were also examined; all of the visible in at least one of the types of relation (e.g.,
shampoo/bathroom). However, the conspicuousness
criterion appears to be insufficient to account for the
8 Due study's findings, even when the effect of type of social
to nonindependenceacross tests, an exact p = value for
the familyof tests could not be determined.The level of significance relation on brand visibility is taken into account.
of p ? 0.0005 was judged to be a reasonablecompromisebetween Overlap. That being so, attention was directed at
the exploratorynature of the study on one hand, and extremely
conservativestandardson the other. Note that for many of the how cliques (or other BSUs) were joined together by
cells in Figure C significanteffects should not be expected on a overlapping membership and how BSUs in different
priorigrounds. social relations intersected. Discussion is limited to
NETWORK ANALYSIS OF BRAND CONGRUENCE 779
FIGURE D
SIGNIFICANTBRAND AGREEMENTIN FRIENDSHIPCLIQUES
45 10 -44
385
10
13 ~10
10o10 92 190
0
~~~~~~10 6
10
401 511
340 18
NOTE: The number along a solid line indicates actual brand agreement in a clique pair for product #10 (pizza). The following are cliques: (2, 13, 75, 94); (2, 13, 94, 529); (18, 340, 529);
(44, 45, 75); (92, 190, 385); (299, 379, 401); and (399, 408, 511).
cliques, because the sheer number of dyads made for account for all of the data. For example, bathroom
difficult interpretation and graphical depiction, and cliques did not overlap, yet significant findings were
because an analysis of overlap for 2-plexes yielded obtained.
essentially the same conclusions as for cliques. Over- Friendship cliques (2, 13, 75, 94) and (2, 13, 94,
lapping clique membership in a given relation is 529) together form a 2-plex, and these cliques were
important because it provides insights into how brand further examined to obtain insights into the effects on
congruence within cliques is transmitted outside the brand choice of intersections across different social
cliques. And intersection of cliques within different relations. The substructure (2, 13, 94, 529) was found
relations is important sociologically because such to be a clique for the social relations friend, meal,
''overlap" may suggest especially cohesive groupings party, and problem and the substructure (2, 13, 75,
of individuals-a property which previous research 94) was found to be a clique for friend, meals, and
suggests is related to brand congruence (e.g., Stafford party. Figure E shows this clique overlap across rela-
1966; Witt 1969). tions graphically, along with information on actual
Figure D shows overlap of individuals in different brand congruence for each pair. Congruence is shown
friendship cliques along with the members' pairwise for all products to generate exploratory insights. Pair-
congruent brand choices for pizza (raw effect = 36.2 wise brand agreement varied from one product to
percent). Four of the seven cliques overlap (i.e., at another even though these cliques were probably co-
least one member belongs to more than one clique); hesive. At one extreme, there was complete within-
overlapping cliques account for 100 percent of the pair and across-pair agreement for the products pizza
pairwise congruence data for pizza. Figure D is an and running/tennis shoe. At the other extreme, not a
extreme example in which overlap of individuals single pair agreed on actual brand choices for shampoo,
across cliques completely spanned the brand congru- magazine, and camera. Clearly, the relationship be-
ence effect for one product. In general, clique overlap tween clique co-membership and congruent brand
of individuals for a type of social relation could not choice depends heavily on the product.
780 THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
FIGUREE
BRANDAGREEMENTS
OVERALL INTHREEMULTIPLEX
CLIQUES
3 6 10 13 316
529
2 5 10 13 14| / \ p2 8 10 13 14|
.___ --
....._.._.._._._._... ------ _------- ------
~~~~f131~~~~1>.7
3 10 11 13 15| j 0
NOTE: Numbers in a rectangle indicate actual brand agreements in a clique pair for the relations as specified above. These numbers correspond to the products listed in Figure C. For
example, the pair 529/75 agrees on brand choices for products 10 and 13, the pair 2/75 agrees on brand choices for products 10 and 13, etc.
It should be emphasized, however, that clique in- pared between multiplex cliques (i.e., intersection
tersection across several social relations was relatively across at least three social relations) and cliques that
unusual. There were only three other cliques which were relation-specific. The five cliques previously
showed overlap across at least three social relations. identified met the criterion of multiplex cliques, and
Nor is it suggested that intersection across different there were seven cliques which were not only relation-
relations is necessarily important. Counter examples specific but which also had pairs that were pairs for
are easy to find; for instance, bathroom cliques showed only that specific relation. For both actual and pre-
virtually no overlap across relations, but significant ferred brands, there was significantly greater overall
brand congruence effects. brand congruence for multiplex cliques (X2 = 10.99,
This sort of intersection has been widely discussed p < 0.01, x2 = 10.42, p < 0.01, respectively). It should
(sometimes called multiplexity, sometimes many- be noted, however, that this overall result is dispro-
strandedness), and we thought it important to further portionately accounted for by cliques (2, 13, 94, 529)
examine the data with an eye to such intersections. and (2, 13, 75, 94) and their complete agreement for
Pairwise brand agreement for all products was com- the products pizza and running/tennis shoe.
NETWORK ANALYSIS OF BRAND CONGRUENCE 781
insufficient and too imprecise to account for our congruence; thus it may be an alternative explanation
findings: significant effects were sometimes observed, to the results obtained here and in previous informal
but in many instances they were not found (e.g., group studies.
jeans, shirt/blouse, tennis/running shoe). Perhaps This alternative interpretation cannot be entirely
worse, the conspicuousness hypothesis in its original discounted, but several aspects of the data render it
form may be virtually untestable in correlational less plausible. First, it would be difficult to explain by
studies, since type of relation is uncontrolled and a similarity argument why congruence effects were
some social relations may allow for brand identification limited to only certain cells of the overall data matrix.
for products generally judged to be private. Even when For example, significant results were obtained in the
one defines a public product as one that is public friend/pizza cells. If similarity in brand decisions
across many social relations, the present data do not resulted primarily from shared personal attributes,
appear to support the proposition that brand congru- why were the results for all the other products insig-
ence will necessarily follow. nificant? Second, the previous analysis on multiplex
There are other ways in which the existing literature cliques revealed no brand agreements for several prod-
seems to fail to explain the present findings. What, ucts. The extent of shared personal attributes should
for example, may explain the fact that in our study, be especially strong for members of multiplex cliques.
the products TV show, restaurant, and pizza accounted Finally, it is important to recognize that brand
for the majority of the significant findings? It is congruence effects were limited to certain products,
difficult to account for this in the literature. In one types of social relation, and types of basic structure
discussion that addresses this kind of issue, Robertson interdependencies. Although the present data do not
(1971) maintains that products low in visibility, com- allow us to provide specific insights into the working
plexity, and perceived risk and high in testability are of these interdependencies, they suggest that types of
less susceptible to personal influences than are products social relations may channel joint/shared consumption
high in visibility, complexity, and perceived risk and processes (e.g., roommate/TV show; neighbor/pizza).
low in testability. Yet it would be difficult to argue What is common to all of these observations is the
that TV show choice (for which significant brand difficulty encountered in addressing them without the
congruence effects were found) is higher in visibility, use of sensitive, precise, and computable measures of
complexity, and perceived risk and lower in testability social structure such as those used in network analysis.
than is wristwatch brand choice (for which no signif- At least three capabilities are needed: (1) to work with
icant brand congruence effects were obtained). many relations-singly and in combination, (2) to
We suggest something more like the following. It is work with different types of social units whose prop-
likely that for products such as TV show, restaurant, erties have solid justification in social theory, and (3)
and pizza, joint brand consumption in interpersonal to relate both of these analytically and conceptually
settings is a more frequent phenomenon than it is for to the properties of products under investigation. Of
products such as watch, jeans, shirt/blouse, and so course, this program is demanding in its data require-
on. Joint brand consumption may be preceded by ments, and ingenuity in research design and data
interpersonal decision making ("What do you want collection are necessary. We suggest that social network
to watch?" "Where do you want to go?") among the analysis can provide valuable conceptual and com-
individuals who comprise a certain basic structure for putational foundations for carrying further the program
a type of social relation. As far as the significant we have outlined in this study.
findings for shampoo and magazine are concerned,
shared brand consumption is also a possibility in the [Received November 1983. Revised August 1984.]
social system under investigation. l
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