Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

www.elsevier.com/locate/joep

The role of the social-identity function of attitudes in

consumer innovativeness and opinion leadership
a,*
Rajdeep Grewal , Raj Mehta b, Frank R. Kardes b

a
Department of Marketing, College of Business and Economics, Washington State University, Pullman,
WA 99164-4730, USA
b
College of Business Administration, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA
Received 2 July 1998; received in revised form 14 June 1999; accepted 17 January 2000

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 in¯uence innovativeness and opinion lead-
ership. 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 ante-
cedents 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. Ó 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

PsycINFO classi®cation: 3120; 3920; 3940

JEL classi®cation: D11; D12

Keywords: Consumer attitudes; Consumer behavior; Motivation

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-509-335-5848; fax: +1-509-335-3865.
E-mail address: grewal@wsunix.wsu.edu (R. Grewal).

0167-4870/00/$ - see front matter Ó 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 6 7 - 4 8 7 0 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 0 3 - 9
234 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

1. Introduction

The recent resurgence of interest in the motivational underpinnings of

cognitive constructs (Kruglanski, 1996) has stimulated interest in issues re-
lating to the psychological needs served by attitudes (cf., Greenwald, 1989).
One related and important stream of research concerns attitude functions
(cf., Shavitt, 1992). Functional theories of attitudes (cf., Katz & Stotland,
1959; Sarno€ & Katz, 1954) ask the question: Why do people hold the at-
titudes they do? Development of new methods to measure attitude functions
helped overcome the operational diculties that have plagued research on
attitude functions (Herek, 1987). We suggest that attitude functions may play
an important role in the adoption and the di€usion of consumer innovations
(Gatignon & Robertson, 1985). The success of new consumer products rests
on the construct of innovativeness, which introduces the product (innova-
tion) to the social system, and opinion leadership, which provides social le-
gitimacy to the innovation. Thus, it is important to develop an understanding
both innovativeness and opinion leadership.

2. Theoretical background and research hypothesis

Functional theorists classify attitudes according to the functional needs

that they meet (Snyder & DeBono, 1989; Shavitt, 1989a). General classi®-
cations categorize attitude functions as utilitarian, ego-defensive, knowledge,
value-expressive, and social-adjustive (Smith, Bruner & White, 1956). One
important objective of consumer psychology is to be able to persuade con-
sumers and change their attitudes. According to the functional theorist, the
prerequisite for changing an attitude is to determine the psychological need
served by the attitude (Shavitt, 1989a).
This role of attitude functions opens a plethora of opportunities to in-
vestigate persuasion processes (Johar & Sirgy, 1991; Park, Milberg & Law-
son, 1991; Shavitt, 1992). Indeed, most applications of attitude functions in
consumer behavior investigate the persuasiveness of advertising messages
(cf., Park, Jaworski & MacInnis, 1986; Snyder & DeBono, 1985). For ex-
ample, Shavitt and Lowrey (1992) investigate the impact of product-related
and audience-related factors on the persuasiveness of value-expressive and
utilitarian advertising messages. Other applications examine objects serving
di€erent attitude functions (cf., Shavitt & Fazio, 1991; Sirgy, Johar, Samli &
Clairborne, 1991). For instance, in their investigation of brand extensions,
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 235

Park et al. (1991) explore functional (utilitarian function) and prestige (so-
cial-adjustive function) related brand names.
Our research studies the social-identity attitude function within the context
of consumer innovations. Shavitt (1990) associated the self-expression (value-
expressive) and social interaction (social-adjustive) role of attitudes to sym-
bolize the social-identity function. Social-identity function de®nes a larger
symbolic category of attitudes (Abelson, 1982; Sears & McConahay, 1973)
and mediates the self and the other interactions (Smith et al., 1956). This
function discriminates between individuals who prefer to display their true
inner self and those for whom attitude helps to harmonize into important
social situations (Snyder & DeBono, 1989).
Products help one achieve private and public identity goals (Abelson &
Prentice, 1989; Shavitt, 1989a). Product perception is a social process if the
perceiver perceives the product, either consciously or unconsciously, as a
social entity. Products also help in de®ning self and to maintain important
self-de®nitions (cf., Belk, 1988) and, often provide people with a character-
istic they feel they lack. In fact, people exhibit self-enhancing biases when
making judgments about product they own, the mere ownership e€ect
(Beggan, 1992). The products that perform the social-identity function: (1)
mediate the self and other relationships, (2) instill pride in a person as they
help the person to ®t in desired social settings, and (3) determine the cen-
trality of the object to the person.
Innovations, because they are generally exciting and trend setting, become
primary candidates for eliciting the social-identity function. For example, if
cars are important for portraying self-image for Sam, then Sam is highly
likely to own a state-of-art model of car. Thus, it is our contention that the
social-identity function of attitude plays an important role in the adoption
and the di€usion of innovations. To gain a better understanding of this
phenomenon, we investigate the relationship between the social-identity
function and the parameters of consumer innovations: innovativeness and
opinion leadership. To be comprehensive in our investigation, we also in-
corporate two traditional innovation research variables, that is, expertise and
involvement.

2.1. Opinion leadership

In a social system, communication ¯ows from the source to the opinion

leaders, who pass it on to the others in the social system (Katz & Lazarsfeld,
1955). Indeed, opinion leadership is considered an important factor in word-
236 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

of-mouth communication, which contributes towards the success of an in-

novation (cf., Childers, 1986; King & Summers, 1970). Opinion leadership
re¯ects an individualÕs ability to in¯uence other individualsÕ attitudes or overt
behavior in a desired way in a particular domain.
The important gate-keeping role of opinion leaders makes it imperative to
understand its antecedents. We conjecture that one unexplored antecedent of
opinion leadership is the social-identity function. People for whom a product
performs the social-identity function feel that their desired social identity is
contingent on owning the product. Product ownership and experience facil-
itates consumers learning about the product (Hoch & Deighton, 1989).
Public access to ownership and, thereby, learning, paints the owner as in-
formed. Therefore, we hypothesize that these owners are more likely to be-
come opinion leaders.

H1 : The social-identity function of attitudes positively impacts opinion

leadership.

2.2. Innovativeness

Innovativeness is the bottom-line type of behavior in the di€usion process

(Rogers, 1995). Innovators launch a new idea into a system by importing
the idea from outside the system. Thus, it is important to develop an un-
derstanding of innovativeness. In addition, a good understanding of the
process of di€usion of innovations requires an understanding of innova-
tiveness (Gatignon & Robertson, 1991). Consistent with Gatignon and
Robertson (1985), we contend that innovativeness is domain speci®c. For
consumer products, this implies that a person might be an innovator in one
product category (say computers) and a follower in another product cate-
gory (say cars). Keeping this domain speci®c nature of innovativeness in
mind, we adopt Goldsmith and HofackersÕ (1991) theorizing of innova-
tiveness as the predisposition to learn about and adopt products in a speci®c
domain.
Attitudes serving the social-identity function facilitate the acceptance of a
person in a particular social setting (Katz, 1960). The attitudes, opera-
tionalized by the object, facilitate the image the person wants to portray. As
the social-identity function facilitates the acceptance of a person in a par-
ticular social setting, the person is likely to adopt innovations in that do-
main. Thus, we expect the social-identity function to positively in¯uence
innovativeness.
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 237

H2 : The social-identity function of attitudes positively impacts innovative-

ness.

One way to become an opinion leader in a product domain is to consis-

tently own contemporary models of that product (Rogers, 1995). Thus, we
expect innovativeness to determine opinion leadership.

H3 : Innovativeness will have a positive in¯uence on opinion leadership.

2.3. Expertise

Consumer knowledge manifests itself in ®nely di€erentiated and hierar-

chically organized knowledge structures, with well-developed consumption
rules, and ®rmly entrenched beliefs about product performance (Sujan,
1985). Consumer knowledge has two components: familiarity and expertise
(Jacoby, Troutman, Kuss & Mazursky, 1986). A consumer acquires famil-
iarity by virtue of product related experiences, whereas expertise is the con-
sumer's ability to perform product related tasks successfully (Alba &
Hutchinson, 1987).
Previous research has shown that innovators are heavy users of the
relevant product category (Rogers, 1995). Although expertise is di€erent
from familiarity gained by virtue of experience with the product (Alba &
Hutchinson, 1987), these two are expected to correlate (Gatignon &
Robertson, 1991). Further, as experts understand a product domain better
than novices do, the perceived risk of adoption of an innovation should be
lower for experts. Thus, we expect expertise to be an antecedent of in-
novativeness.

H4 : Expertise would have a positive in¯uence on innovativeness.

Experts by de®nition are knowledgeable in the concerned domain. They

own information not possessed but sought by others. In addition, the lead-
ership status of opinion leaders is due to their technical competence (Rogers,
1995). Therefore, there is a higher likelihood for an expert to be an opinion
leader in comparison to a novice.

H5 : Expertise will have a positive in¯uence on opinion leadership.

238 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

2.4. Involvement

Involvement signi®es long-term interest in a domain and plays a central

role in de®ning self-concept (Bloch, 1981). Consumer involvement with
products depends on the personal relevance of that product (Celsi & Olson,
1988; Park & Hastak, 1994). Persons involved with a product category gain
experience with the product and acquire product-related knowledge. In this
way, one can argue that involvement is an antecedent of expertise. Further,
scholars assert that knowledge renders the world more comprehensible and
predictable (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987). As this assertion is more cognitive
than motivational, scholars have argued that knowledge is an unlikely can-
didate for arousing intense forms of personal involvement (Thomsen,
Borgida & Lavine, 1995). To test these contradictory explanations, we pro-
pose two alternative hypotheses.

H6 : Involvement will have a positive in¯uence expertise.

H6ALT : Involvement does not in¯uence expertise.

People are involved with a product category that is central to their beliefs
about self (Bloch, 1981; Boninger, Krosnick & Berent, 1995; Petty & Caci-
oppo, 1979). People for whom the concerned product performs the social-
identity function hold the product as being central to them and, therefore, are
likely to be involved with the product.

H7 : The social-identity function of attitudes is positively related to involve-

ment.

Innovativeness in the concerned domain implies adopting relevant

innovations, which requires an understanding of the innovation. One
way to gain this understanding is by being involved with the concerned
domain.

H8 : Involvement positively in¯uences innovativeness.

Finally, we expect involvement to positively in¯uence opinion leadership.

Opinion leaders have knowledge that is useful to others. This repository of
information that the opinion leaders accumulate is by virtue of being in-
volved with the concerned domain.
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 239

H9 : Involvement positively in¯uences opinion leadership.

3. The study

3.1. Measures

We use self-reported measures to operationalize products serving the so-

cial-identity function of attitudes for two products, viz., cars and computers.
Indeed, we use a mixture of object based (product categories ± Shavitt,
1989b) and individual di€erence (self-report measure) approaches to mea-
sure the social-identity function of attitudes (also see Clary, Snyder, Ridge,
Miene & Haugen, 1994). We adopt four items, pertinent to our conceptu-
alization, from the scale developed by Traylor and Joseph (1984) to measure
context speci®c involvement and ChildersÕ (1986) version of the product-
speci®c opinion leadership scale developed by King and Summers (1970).
Following Sujan (1985), we use ten multiple-choice questions to measure
expertise. To measure domain speci®c innovativeness, we adapted the three-
item scale developed by Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991). Research on re-
verse polarity (cf., Herche & Engelland, 1996) recommends against using
negatively worded items; thus we deleted the three reverse polarity items
from Goldsmith and Hofacker's (1991) six-item scale to get the three-item
scale.
Based on our de®nition of the construct of social-identity function of at-
titudes, we generated four items to capture the construct. To verify face
validity of these items, two fourth year doctoral students, not concerned with
this research, performed a card sorting exercise. These students were given
de®nitions of each construct along with cards with one item printed on each
card (thus, they had 14 cards each). The classi®cation of the items was 100%
correct. Finally, three of the four items were used to measure social identity
function (see section on measure validation ± Table 1). The ®rst item captures
the construct directly by asking the importance of respondents' friendsÕ
knowing that the respondent owns the product. The second item emphasizes
the importance of owning the ``latest style''. Note that the emphasis is on
``latest style'' and not on either technological advancement (that is, innova-
tiveness) or inner grati®cation (that is, involvement). The third item captures
the construct indirectly by asking whether product ownership determines the
respondents' likelihood of preference for a person.
240 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

Table 1
Con®rmatory factor analysisa
Item description Standard- Standardized
ized load- loadings: com-
ings: cars puters
Opinion leadership
In general, do you talk to your friends and neighbors about _______. 0.6907 0.6502
(1 ˆ very often, 5 ˆ never)
When you talk to your friends and neighbors about ______ do you: 0.8083 0.7818
(1 ˆ give a great deal of information, 5 ˆ give very little information)
During the past six months, how many people have you told about 0.7664 0.6884
______. (1 ˆ told a number of people, 5 ˆ told no one)
Compared with your circle of friends, how likely are you to be asked 0.8459 0.8447
about _____. (1 ˆ very likely to be asked, 5 ˆ not at all likely to be
asked)
In a discussion on ______, which of the following happens often 1 ˆ tell 0.8170 0.7118
your friends about _____, 5 ˆ your friends tell about _____)
Overall in all of your discussions with friends and neighbors, are you: 0.6521 0.6631
(1 ˆ often used as a source of advice, 5 ˆ not used as a source of advice)
Innovativeness
In general, I am the ®rst in my circle of friends to buy a new model of 0.8091 0.8193
_____ when it appears in the market. (1 ˆ disagree, 5 ˆ agree)
Compared to my friends I have owned a lot of ______. (1 ˆ disagree, 0.6281 0.6557
5 ˆ agree)
In general, I am the ®rst in my circle of friends to know the title/brand of 0.6733 0.7234
latest _____. (1 ˆ disagree, 5 ˆ agree)
Involvement
You can tell a lot about a person by seeing which brand of _____ he/she 0.7555 0.7637
uses. (1 ˆ disagree, 7 ˆ agree)
When I use a ______, others see me the way I want hem to see meb ) )
_____ help me express who I am. (1 ˆ disagree, 7 ˆ agree) 0.5187 0.5564
_____ is me. (1 ˆ disagree, 7 ˆ agree) 0.6041 0.6728
Social-identity function
It is important for my friend to know that I have a good _____. 0.8013 0.7951
(1 ˆ disagree, 7 ˆ agree)
I take pride in owning the latest available technology in _____. ) )
(1 ˆ disagree, 7 ˆ agree)b
I like to own a _____ with latest style. (1 ˆ disagree, 7 ˆ agree) 0.8783 0.7445
I generally like a person who owns a good _____. (1 ˆ disagree, 0.6211 0.6879
7 ˆ agree)
a
For two group (products) overall ®t statistics: v2 ˆ 848:9, d:f: ˆ 168, p < 0:001, GFI ˆ 0:9037,
NNFI ˆ 0:7672, CFI ˆ 0:8138, Standardized RMR ˆ 0:0537. Further, all factor loadings are signi®cant
at 1% level.
b
Item deleted after con®rmatory factor analysis.
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 241

3.2. Context

Data were collected for two product categories: cars and computers. The
order in which the items for these products were presented was randomized
to eliminate any order e€ects. Cars were chosen because they are publicly
consumed products that witness frequent incremental enhancements (inno-
vations). On the other hand computers represent products that can be de-
scribed as being primarily privately consumed and have also seen a lot of
innovations lately. Following Bearden and Etzel (1982), we would expect
social-identity function to be more important for publicly consumed prod-
ucts and involvement to be important for privately consumed products. We
use a pretest to classify cars and computers along the public±private con-
tinuum. We adopted the six-item±six-point scale of Bearden and Etzel (1982)
for the pretest. The mean for cars and computers were 5.32 and 3.17, with 1
signifying private consumption and 6 depicting public consumption.

3.3. Sample

Two hundred and twenty-six undergraduate students at a large mid-

western US university participated in the study for extra credit. Two hundred
and twenty-four responses were usable. All the students were within one year
of ®nishing their undergraduate education and most of them already had
jobs. One could argue that student sample is not suitable for our context, that
is, cars and computers. On the contrary, as we are more interested in basic
psychological processes than generalization, a student sample is appropriate.
In fact, for research like ours that focuses on process generalization as op-
posed to e€ect generalization, scholars recommended using student samples
(cf., Calder, Phillips & Tybout, 1981, 1982; Mook, 1983). For instance,
Kardes (1996, p. 287) recommends student research participants for ``basic
research on causal mechanisms''. Moreover, in a case very similar to ours,
where students may not be experienced with purchasing cars or computers,
Petty and Cacioppo (1996) persuasively argue that the e€ects of experience
on judgment can be modeled e€ectively in laboratory settings with student
participants. Finally, in a comparison of laboratory and ®eld studies, Locke
(1986) found substantively equivalent results in studies relating to industrial-
organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and human resource
management. Therefore, we think that there is ample precedence and evi-
dence for us to use college students to study consumer behavior relating to
cars and computers.
242 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

3.4. Results

We adopted Gerbing and AndersonÕs (1988) scale development paradigm

to develop a scale for the social-identity function of attitudes. To test our
proposed model, we use Anderson and GerbingÕs (1988) two-step approach
for structural equation modeling. First, exploratory factor analysis on the
social-identity function of attitudes items identi®ed one factor with an ei-
genvalue greater than 1 for cars, but in the case of computers there were two
factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. The ®rst factor had an eigenvalue of
6.40 and the second factor had an eigenvalue of 1.07. Eigenvalues are a
measure of variance explained (or analytic importance) by a factor. An ei-
genvalue of 1 implies that a factor explains variance equal to that of an item.
As there was a large di€erence between the eigenvalues of the ®rst and second
factor and the second eigenvalue was very close to one. Although, there are
numerous rules of thumb that one could use to determine the number of
factors (we refer the readers to Nunnally and Bernstein (1994, pp. 482±483)
for a review), usually a cuto€ of 1 for eigenvalues is used to suggest the
number of factors. However, this cuto€ is just a rule of thumb. As we have
large di€erences between the ®rst and the second eigenvalues and the second
eigenvalue is very close to 1, we used our judgment and theory to interpret
social-identity function as a unidimensional construct. Note that in the case
of cars we had only one factor with this eigenvalue rule of thumb. Therefore,
we believe that the exploratory factor analysis results indicate that the con-
struct of the objectÕs invoking the social-identity function of attitudes is
unidimensional.
Subsequently, we used LISREL to: (1) obtain the factor loadings for the
con®rmatory factor analysis and (2) test our hypotheses by estimating a
structural equation model. LISREL is a software that uses maximum like-
lihood estimation to analyze covariance structures to model relationships
between multiple latent variables. Usually, a researchers uses multiple items
(observed variables) to measure a latent variable. Speci®cally, we estimate a
four-construct, viz., social-identity function, opinion leadership, innovative-
ness, and involvement con®rmatory factor model. High-standardized resid-
uals, high modi®cation indices, and low factors loading were used to re®ne
the scales. We used low factor loadings, high modi®cation indices, and high
normalized residuals to re®ne the measures. Speci®cally, we use a multi-
group analysis. As each respondent answered questions on both cars and
computers, a multi-group analysis is appropriate. Table 1 has the factor
loadings for the two product domains. Overall, the factor loadings are sat-
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 243

isfactory. For the two products, the overall ®t statistics for the measurement
model signal mixed results. For the two products, the v2 statistic is signi®cant
(see Table 1: v2 ˆ 848:9, d:f: ˆ 168, p ˆ 0:00). This anomaly of v2 statistic
not agreeing with other measures of overall goodness of ®t statistics is
common for larger sample sizes (cf., Bagozzi & Warshaw, 1990; Stump &
Heide, 1996). The NNFI (0.7672) and CFI (0.8138) values are below the
recommended levels, whereas GFI (0.9037) and Standardized RMR (0.0537)
meet the recommended cuto€ levels. At the very least, these ®t statistics signal
that future research should further re®ne the measure for the social-identity
function.
Discriminant validity was assessed my means of average variance extracted
and the con®dence interval around /2 between these constructs (Table 2).
With two exceptions (one for each product), the average variance extracted
was greater than the recommended 0.5 cut o€ (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988) and in all
cases it was greater than the appropriate squared structural link …/†. Dis-
criminant validity was further established as none of the con®dence intervals
around the maximum likelihood estimate of /2 (2 standard error) con-
tained 1 (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988).
Nomological validity of the construct of social-identity function has been
assessed in two ways: By means of correlation coecients and by estimating
the path model in Fig. 1. Table 3 displays the correlation coecients and
Table 4 summarizes the parameter estimates for the path model (Fig. 1).
First, we ®nd support for the nomological validity of the social-identity
function of attitudes as it is positively correlated with involvement, innova-
tiveness, and opinion leadership (Table 3). However, these are some anom-

Table 2
Discriminant validity: Phi squarea and average variance extractedb
Social-identity Involvement Opinion Innovativeness
function leadership
Involvement )0.390 (0.073) )
0.796 (0.043)
Opinion leadership )0.124 (0.075) 0.724 (0.047) )
0.524 (0.063) 0.347 (0.067)
Innovativeness 0.033 (0.0866) 0.331 (0.085) 0.151 (0.083) )
0.502 (0.068) 0.436 (0.066) 0.555 (0.056)
Average variance extracted 0.587 0.500 0.600 0.441
0.600 0.630 0.489 0.621
a
Phi-square for cars followed by computers. Standard errors in parentheses.
b
Average variance extracted for cars followed by computers.
244 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

Fig. 1. Proposed model.

alies in the case of expertise. Expertise is signi®cantly correlated with inno-

vativeness and opinion leadership in the case of cars, whereas for computers,
expertise is positively correlated with opinion leadership. Note that for both
cars and computers, the correlation between expertise and involvement was
not signi®cant.
We used structural equation modeling (LISREL 8.12) to test the proposed
path model with the covariance matrix as the input (Anderson & Gerbing,
1988). Manifest indicators were created for each variable by averaging the
items of each scale (cf., Kenny, 1979; Williams & Hazar, 1986). For the
unidimensional scales (all our scales were unidimensional), we used the re-
liability coecient (CronbachÕs alpha) to calculate the factor loadings and
measurement error for each manifest variable. The path from the latent
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 245

Table 3
Correlation coecients and CronbachÕs alpha
Involvement Expertise Opinion Social-identi- CronbachÕs
leadership ty function alpha
Cars
Involvement ) ) ) ) 0.748
Expertise 0.056 ) ) ) )
Opinion leadership 0.352 0.166 ) ) 0.894
Social-identity function 0.666 0.051 0.341 ) 0.817
Innovativeness 0.465 0.168 0.487 0.574 0.663
Computers
Involvement ) ) ) ) 0.832
Expertise 0.002 ) ) ) )
Opinion leadership 0.289 0.279 ) ) 0.899
Social-identity function 0.599 0.072 0.464 ) 0.731
Innovativeness 0.328 0.119 0.494 0.414 0.891
*
p < 0:01.
**
p < 0:05.

variable to its manifest variable was set equal to the square root of the re-
liability of the measured variable (cf., Settoon, Bennett & Liden 1996). The
error variance for each manifest indicator was set equal to one minus reli-
ability times the appropriate variance from the covariance matrix. The only
exception was the reliability of expertise, which was set equal to 0.9 (An-
derson & Gerbing, 1982). Speci®cally, we estimate the system of following
equations (we summarize these equations in Fig. 1):
EXP ˆ cie INVL ‡ fEXP ; …1†

INNV ˆ cin INVL ‡ csn SIF ‡ ben EXP ‡ fINNV ; …2†

OL ˆ cio INVL ‡ cso SIF ‡ beo EXP ‡ bno INNV ‡ fOL ; …3†

where EXP, INVL, SIF, INVL, and OL stand for expertise, involvement,
social-identity function, innovativeness, and opinion leadership respectively.
As in Fig. 1 c denotes the in¯uence of exogenous variables and b represents
the e€ect of endogenous variables. Finally, f symbolizes the three random
error terms. We present the LISREL estimates of the above equations in
Table 4. The goodness of ®t statistics for the path model indicate a good ®t
for the proposed model …v2 ˆ 0:56; d:f: ˆ 2; p ˆ 0:75; GFI ˆ 0:99; NFI ˆ
0:99; CFI ˆ 0:99†. Anderson and Gerbing (1988) suggest nested statistical
test for any proposed model. For our two-group model, we have only two
degrees of freedom available and if we have any addition path, we would
246 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

Table 4
Path coecients for proposed modela
Coecients Hypothesized direction Cars Computers
cie Positive/No e€ect 0.033 (0.088) 0.112 (0.108)
0.033 (0.088) 0.112 (0.088)
cio Positive )0.088 (0.069) 0.227 (0.157)
)0.048 (0.073) 0.224 (0.092)

cin Positive 0.103 (0.088) )0.014 (0.151)

0.104 (0.087) )0.005 (0.087)

cso Positive 0.271 (0.082) )0.320 (0.204)

0.343 (0.087) 0.068 (0.109)
csn Positive 0.204 (0.103) 0.497 (0.148)
0.204 (0.103) 0.497 (0.103)
beo Positive 0.094 (0.024) 0.008 (0.037)
0.110 (0.026) 0.078 (0.031)
ben Positive 0.044 (0.031) 0.089 (0.032)
0.044 (0.031) 0.089 (0.031)
bno Positive 0.354 (0.070) 0.781 (0.203)
0.354 (0.070) 0.781 (0.070)
/is Positive 2.811 (0.368) 1.862 (0.228)
a
Direct e€ects are o€ered ®rst and then total e€ects. Standard error in parentheses.
Note: Overall ®t of the two-group model: v2 ˆ 0:564, d:f: ˆ 2, p ˆ 0:754, GFI ˆ 1:00, NFI ˆ 0:999,
CFI ˆ 1:00.
*
p < 0:01.
**
p < 0:05.

have no degrees of freedom available, thus giving us a perfect ®t. As our v2

was not statistically signi®cant we expect this nested v2 test also to be non-
signi®cant. We did ®t a sub-model of the proposed model (we deleted the
paths of direct in¯uence of social-identity function, involvement, and ex-
pertise on opinion leadership) to the data. The v2 value with 8 degrees of
freedom was 36.28. The v2 di€erence test gave a v2 of 34.72 with 6 degrees of
freedom-which was statistically signi®cant …p < 0:01†. Thus, the proposed
model gives a better ®t than the reduced model and, thus, we test our hy-
potheses within the proposed model.
In the case of car (H1 ), the social-identity function is an antecedent of
opinion leadership, however this assertion is not supported for computers.
Indeed, the social-identity function determines innovativeness for both
product categories (H2 ) and innovativeness determined opinion leadership
for both cars and computers (H3 ). Although expertise determined innova-
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 247

tiveness only for computer (H4 ), it does seem to be an antecedent to opinion

leadership for both product categories (H5 ). The hypothesis linking social-
identity function and involvement (H7 ) was supported for both the product
categories, however, involvement did not determine innovativeness or ex-
pertise (H8 and H6 ). Do note that we were skeptical of involvement deter-
mining expertise, as expertise is a cognitive construct, whereas involvement is
a motivational construct (H6ALT ). The hypothesis concerning the link be-
tween involvement and opinion leadership receives support in the case of
computer (H9 ). In summary, we ®nd support for (1) H2 , H3 , and H7 for both
the product categories, (2) H1 for cars, and (3) H4 and H9 for computers (see
Table 4 for details).

4. Discussion

The present study shows that for publicly consumed products, attitudes
that serve a social-identity function play an important role in consumer in-
novativeness and opinion leadership. Attitudes that serve the social-identity
function facilitate interpersonal interaction by communicating consumersÕ
consumption-related values and goals to other consumers. Social identity
function is particularly important for publicly consumed products because
such products re¯ect consumersÕ personal tastes and preferences to a much
greater extent than privately consumed products.
In the case of cars, experts tend to become opinion leaders; however, the
social-identity function determines both innovativeness and opinion leader-
ship. This pattern of results would be expected for a publicly consumed
product, as visibility for publicly consumed goods is high (cf., Bearden &
Etzel, 1982). For computers, expertise is an antecedent of both innovative-
ness and opinion leadership. The social-identity function is an antecedent of
innovativeness but not of opinion leadership. The diminished role of social-
identity function for computers relative to cars can be attributed to the fact
that computers are privately consumed products.

4.1. Limitations

We highlight four limitations of our research. First, we only study the

in¯uence of personal characteristics of an individual on opinion leadership
and innovativeness. Future research should investigate personal character-
istics with other aspects of adoption and di€usion of consumer innovations
248 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

such as interpersonal in¯uence, characteristics of the innovation, the mar-

keting activity of the innovating ®rm, and competitive activity (Gatignon &
Robertson, 1985). Second, we only examine the social-identity function of
attitudes as opposed to other functions that attitudes could perform. Given
the strong results we obtain with respect to the social-identity function, future
research should investigate other attitude functions. Third, as hypothesized,
we did ®nd our results to be context dependent ± future research should
further investigate this issue by examining other contexts. Finally, our con-
®rmatory factor analysis results concerning the properties of our measure-
ment model have scope to be improved.

4.2. Implications

Innovation plays a crucial role in consumer preference, competition

among ®rms, and industry performance. Consumers prefer automobiles to
streetcars, planes to trains, and small portable computers to large bulky
computers. In a classic survey of 700 ®rms (60% industrial, 20% consumer
durables, 20% consumer non-durables), new product innovations accounted
for 28% of the observed growth of organizations (Booz, Allen, and Hamil-
ton, 1982). More recently, Wind, Mahajan and Bayeless (1990) found that
25% of ®rms' current sales resulted from new product innovations introduced
within the last three years of the survey. All products go through the stages of
introduction, growth, maturity, and decline, and recent technological ad-
vances and intensifying competition continue to shorten the duration of each
of the product life cycle stages (Urban & Hauser, 1993).
Although innovation is critical to the growth and the success of any or-
ganization, consumers di€er in their receptiveness to new product innova-
tions. Some consumer segments actively seek out new product innovations
and communicate the bene®ts of these innovations to other consumers. Other
segments are much slower to adopt new innovations. Some segments (e.g.,
the laggard segment) are so resistant to innovation that by they time they
adopt a new product it has already been replaced by a newer innovation
(Urban & Hauser, 1993). Our research suggests that measuring consumersÕ
attitude functions concerning di€erent product categories a€ords ®rms with
the opportunity to identify those consumer segments that are likely to be
most sensitive and responsive to new product o€erings. Segments of con-
sumers that hold attitudes serving the social-identity function are most likely
adopt early, provided that the new product innovation is likely to be publicly
rather than privately consumed. Not only are these segments likely to in-
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 249

crease early sales and pro®ts, they provide the added bene®t of word-of-
mouth communications to other segments that could also stimulate growth.
Later adopters look to early adopters for information and opinion leadership
that can greatly in¯uence their purchase decisions.
In theoretic terms our research adds to current understanding of the
process of adoption and di€usion of consumer innovations and sheds light on
new antecedents of innovativeness and opinion leadership. Such an expla-
nation of both innovativeness and opinion leadership has important theo-
retical implications as we are explaining two behavioral variables with the
help of an attitudinal construct. The in¯uence of attitude on behavior is well
documented in literature, however which attitude in¯uences what behavior is
an important question for both researchers and practitioners. In addition,
identifying opinion leaders and innovators is important for organizations as
these leaders give the innovation legitimacy and innovators introduce it to the
social system.

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the comments of David Houghton on an earlier

version of the manuscript.

References

Abelson, R. P. (1982). Three modes of attitude-behavior consistency. In M. P. Zanna, E. T. Higgins & C.

P. Herman, Consistency in social behavior: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 2, pp. 131±146). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Abelson, R. P., & Prentice, D. A. (1989). Beliefs as possessions: a functional perspective. In A. R.
Pratkanis, S. J. Breckler & A. G. Greenwald, Attitude structure and function (pp. 361±381). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Alba, J. W., & Hutchinson, J. W. (1987). Dimensions of consumer expertise. Journal of Consumer
Research, 13, 411±454.
Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1982). Some pitfalls in causal analysis of categorical data. Journal of
Marketing Research, 19, 453±460.
Anderson, J. C., & Gerbing, D. W. (1988). Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and
recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 411±423.
Bagozzi, R. P., & Warshaw, P. R. (1990). Trying to consume. Journal of Consumer Research, 17, 127±140.
Bagozzi, R. P., & Yi, Y. (1988). On the evaluation of structural equation models. Journal of the Academy
of Marketing Science, 16, 74±94.
Bearden, W. O., & Etzel, M. J. (1982). Reference group in¯uence on product and brand purchase
behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 9, 183±194.
250 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

Beggan, J. K. (1992). On social nature of nonsocial perception: The mere ownership e€ect. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 229±237.
Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 139±168.
Bloch, P. H. (1981). An exploration into the scaling of consumersÕ involvement with a product class. In K.
B. Monroe, Advances of consumer research (Vol. 8, pp. 61±65). Provo, UT: The Association of
Consumer Research.
Boninger, D. S., Krosnick, J. A., & Berent, M. K. (1995). The causes and consequences of attitude
importance: Self-interest social identi®cation and values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
68, 61±80.
Booz, Allen, Hamilton (1982). New product management for the 1980s. New York: Booz, Allen, and
Hamilton.
Calder, B. J., Phillips, L. W., & Tybout, A. M. (1981). Designing research for application. Journal of
Consumer Behavior, 8, 197±207.
Calder, B. J., Phillips, L. W., & Tybout, A. M. (1982). The concept of external validity. Journal of
Consumer Research, 9, 240±244.
Celsi, R. L., & Olson, J. C. (1988). The role of involvement in attention and comprehension processes.
Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 210±224.
Childers, T. L. (1986). Assessment of psychometric properties of opinion leadership scale. Journal of
Marketing Research, 23, 184±188.
Clary, E. G., Snyder, M., Ridge, R. D., Miene, P. E., & Haugen, J. A. (1994). Matching messages to
motives in persuasion: A functional approach to promoting volunteerism. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 24, 1129±1149.
Gatignon, H., & Robertson, T. S. (1985). A propositional inventory for new di€usion research. Journal of
Consumer Research, 11, 859±867.
Gatignon, H., & Robertson, T. S. (1991). Innovative decision processes. In T. S. Robertson & H. H.
Kassarjian, Handbook of consumer behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Greenwald, A.G. (1989). Why are attitudes important? In A. R. Pratkanis, S. J. Breckler & A. G.
Greenwald, Attitude structure and function (pp. 1±10). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gerbing, D. W., & Anderson, J. C. (1988). An updated paradigm for scale development incorporating
unidimensionality and its assessment. Journal of Marketing Research, 25, 186±192.
Goldsmith, R. E., & Hofacker, C. (1991). Measuring consumer innovativeness. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 19, 209±221.
Herche, J., & Engelland, B. (1996). Reverse-polarity items and scale unidimensionality. Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science, 24, 366±374.
Herek, G. M. (1987). Can functions be measured? A new perspective to functional approach to attitudes.
Social Psychology Quarterly, 50, 285±303.
Hoch, S. J., & Deighton, J. (1989). Managing what consumers learn from experience. Journal of
Marketing, 53, 1±20.
Jacoby, J., Troutman, T., Kuss, A., & Mazursky, D. (1986). Experience and expertise in complex decision
making. In R. J. Lutz, Advances in consumer research (Vol. 13, pp. 469±475). Provo, UT: Association
for Consumer Research.
Johar, J. S., & Sirgy, M. J. (1991). Value expressive utilitarian advertising appeals: When and why to use
which appeal. Journal of Advertising, 20, 23±33.
Kardes, F. R. (1996). In defense of experimental consumer psychology. Journal of Consumer Psychology,
5, 279±296.
Katz, D. (1960). The functional approach to the study of attitudes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 24, 163±204.
Katz, D., & Stotland, E. (1959). A preliminary statement to a theory of attitude structure and change. In S.
Koch, Psychology: A study of science, (Vol. 3, pp. 423±475). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Katz, E., & Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1955). Personal in¯uence. New York: The Free Press.
Kenny, D. A. (1979). Correlation and causality. New York: Wiley.
 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252 251

King, C. W., & Summers, J. O. (1970). Overlap of opinion across consumer product categories. Journal of
Marketing Research, 7, 43±50.
Kruglanski, A. W. (1996). Motivated social cognition: Principles of the interface. In E. T. Higgins & A. W.
Kruglanski, Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 493±520). New York: Guilford Press.
Locke, E. A. 1986. Generalizing from laboratory to ®eld setting: Research ®ndings from industrial-
organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and human resource management. Lexington, MA:
Lexington.
Mook, D. G. (1983). In defense of external validity. American Psychologist, 38, 379±387.
Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Park, C. W., Jaworski, B. J., & MacInnis, D. J. (1986). Strategic brand concept-image management.
Journal of Marketing, 50, 135±145.
Park, C. W., Milberg, S., & Lawson, R. (1991). Evaluation of brand extensions: The role of product
feature similarity and brand concept consistency. Journal of Consumer Research, 18, 185±193.
Park, J.-W., & Hastak, M. (1994). Memory-based product judgments: E€ects of involvement at encoding
and retrieval. Journal of Consumer Research, 21, 534±547.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1979). Issue involvement can increase or decrease persuasion by enhancing
message relevant cognitive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1915±1926.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1996). Addressing disturbing and disturbed consumer behavior: Is it
necessary to change the way we conduct behavioral science? Journal of Marketing Research, 33, 1±8.
Rogers, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). New York: The Free Press.
Sarno€, D., & Katz, D. (1954). The motivational basis of attitudinal change. Journal of Abnormal Social
Psychology, 49, 115±124.
Sears, D. O., & McCohanay, J. (1973). The new urban blacks and the watts riot. Boston: Houghton Mif¯in.
Settoon, R. P., Bennett, N., & Liden, R. C. (1996). Social exchange in organizations: Perceived
organizational support leader±member exchange and employee reciprocity. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 81, 219±227.
Shavitt, S. (1989a). Operationalizing functional theories of attitudes. In A. R. Pratkanis, S. J. Breckler &
A. G. Greenwald, Attitude structure and functions (pp. 311±337). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Shavitt, S. (1989b). Products, personalities, and functions in attitude functions: Implications for consumer
behavior. In T. K. Srull, Advances in consumer research (vol. 16, pp. 300±305). Provo, UT: Association
for Consumer Research.
Shavitt, S. (1990). The role of attitude objects in attitude functions. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 26, 124±148.
Shavitt, S. (1992). Evidence for predicting the e€ectiveness of value expressive versus utilitarian appeals: A
reply to Johar and Sirgy. Journal of Advertising, 21, 47±51.
Shavitt, S., & Fazio, R. H. (1991). E€ects of attribute salience on the consistency between attitudes and
behavior predictions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 507±516.
Shavitt, S., & Lowrey, T.M. (1992). Attitudes functions in advertising e€ectiveness: the interactive role of
product type and personality type. In J. Sherry & B. Strenthal, Advances in consumer research (vol. 19,
pp. 323±328). UT: Association for Consumer Research.
Sirgy, M. J., Johar, J. S., Samli, A. C., & Clairborne, C. B. (1991). Self-congruity versus functional
congruity: predictors of consumer behavior. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 19, 363±375.
Smith, M. B., Bruner, J. S., & White, R. W. (1956). Opinions and personality. New York: Wiley.
Snyder, M., & DeBono, K. G. (1985). Appeals to image and claims about quality: Understanding the
psychology of advertising. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 586±597.
Snyder, M., & DeBono, K.G. (1989). Understanding the attitude functions: Lessons from personality and
social behavior. In A. R. Pratkanis, S. J. Breckler & A. G. Greenwald, Attitude structure and functions
(pp. 339±359). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Stump, R. L., & Heide, J. B. (1996). Controlling supplier opportunism in industrial relationships. Journal
of Marketing Research, 33, 431±441.
252 R. Grewal et al. / Journal of Economic Psychology 21 (2000) 233±252

Sujan, M. (1985). Consumer knowledge: E€ects on evaluation strategies mediating consumer judgments.
Journal of Consumer Research, 12, 31±46.
Thomsen, C. J., Borgida, E., & Lavine, H. (1995). The causes and consequences of personal involvement.
In R. E. Petty & J. A. Krosnick, Attitude strength ± antecedents and consequences (pp. 191±214).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Traylor, M. B., & Joseph, W. B. (1984). Measuring consumer involvement with products: Developing a
general scale. Psychology and Marketing, 1, 65±77.
Urban, G. L., & Hauser, J. R. (1993). Design and marketing of new products. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Williams, L. J., & Hazar, J. T. (1986). Antecedents and consequences of satisfaction and commitment in
turnover models: A reanalysis using latent variable structural equation methods. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 71, 219±231.
Wind, J., Mahajan, V., & Bayeless, J. L. (1990). The role of new product models in supporting and improving
the new product development process: Some preliminary results. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science
Institute.