Current Projects
When do consumers place a premium on credibility in decisions to follow?
Search versus Scroll and Consumer Decisions to Follow: The Effect of Platform Type on the Credibility Premium (under review)
Edith Shalev, Coby Morvinski, Meyrav Shoham, and Ellie J. Kyung
Following others on digital platforms has become a pervasive form of content consumption. When do consumers give weight to the communicator’s credibility in making followership decisions? Analyses of four large datasets from following-enabled platforms (Yelp, Goodreads, Twitter, Instagram) demonstrate that consumers’ orientation towards content consumption—specifically whether it is more goal-directed (“search”) versus experiential (“scroll”)—critically shapes their decisions of whom to follow online. Consumers engaged in content consumption that is more goal-directed (on platforms such as Goodreads or Yelp) place a higher premium on the credibility of individuals they choose to follow. In contrast, those immersed in more experiential content consumption (on platforms such as Twitter or Instagram), show greater willingness to forgo this premium.
When do influencer allyship messages empower the disadvantaged?
Front and Center: When Influencer Allyship Messages Empower The Disadvantaged? (Conditionally accepted, Journal of The Association of Consumer Research)
Edith Shalev, Sarit Moldovan, and Aronte M. Bennett
Social media influencers from advantaged groups who assume allyship roles in social movements have the power to facilitate social change. However, influencer allyship messages on social media are not always effective and it is unclear what determines reactions of disadvantaged group members to an influencer’s allyship message. Across seven studies, we find that influencer allyship messages that center the disadvantaged group are more empowering and, as a result, elicit greater engagement from members of the disadvantaged group. This centering effect manifests only among disadvantaged group members and is more pronounced among influencers with large followership and disadvantaged recipients who strongly believe that their group is stigmatized.
When Centrality Increases Conformity to Group Preferences: A Social Identity Perspective (Working paper)
Edith Shalev & Sarit Moldovan
Central consumers—those with numerous social ties—exert considerable influence within their communities. However, it is unclear whether their influential attitudes and choices are the product of autonomous, independent thinking, or of conformity to prevailing attitudes within their social circles. Existing research has predominantly approached this question using a social hierarchy lens. It was postulated that highly central consumers, due to their high status, would be impervious to influence. This prediction has garnered some empirical support, yet is challenged by mixed findings and limited process evidence.
The present research introduces a social identity perspective to the study of network centrality. Across a variety of social groups, we find that centrality increases conformity to group preferences due to enhanced group identification. While centrality and self-perceived status exhibit interconnectedness, the effect of status on conformity is weaker and less reliable than that of group identification. The positive effect of centrality on conformity to group preferences is attenuated among individuals with an independent self-construal.
How network centrality affects susceptibility to group influence?
Publications and Working Papers
Social Networks, Opinion leaders, and influencers
Moldovan, Sarit, Eitan Muller, Yossi Richter, and Elad Yom-Tov (2017). Opinion leadership in small groups. International Journal of Research in Marketing 34, no. 2: 536-552.
Moldovan, Sarit, Yael Steinhart, and Shlomit Ofen (2015). “Share and scare”: Solving the communication dilemma of early adopters with a high need for uniqueness. Journal of Consumer Psychology 25, 1, 1-14.
Landsman, Vardit and Irit Nitzan (2020), Cross-decision Social Effects in Product Adoption and Defection Decisions, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 37, 213-235.
Moldovan, Sarit, Yael Steinhart, and Donald R. Lehmann. (2019). Propagators, Creativity, and Informativeness: What Helps Ads Go Viral. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 47(1), 102–114.
Hod, Nurit, and Moldovan Sarit, Opinion Leadership: A critical review and research directions. Working paper.
Shalev, Edith, Meyrav Shoham, Coby Morvinski, and Ellie J. Kyung, Search versus Scroll and Consumer Decisions to Follow: The Effect of Platform Type on the Credibility Premium, Under review.
Shalev, Edith, Sarit Moldovan, and Aronte M. Bennet (2024). Front and Center: When Influencer Allyship Messages Empower the Disadvantaged, Journal of The Association for Consumer Research, 9(4).
Online Reviews
Shoham, Meyrav, Sarit Moldovan, and Yael Steinhart (2017). Positively useless: Irrelevant negative information enhances positive impressions. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27(2), 147-159.
Moldovan, Sarit, Meyrav Shoham, and Yael Steinhart (2023). Sending Mixed Signals: How Congruent Versus Incongruent Signals of Popularity Affect Product Appeal. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 40 (4), 881-897.
Group Influence Processes
Shalev, Edith and Rom Y. Schrift (2018). Opinion Leaders or Opinion Followers? The Effect of Centrality on Susceptibility to Group Influence, MSI Working Paper 18-109-05.
Pe’er, Eyal, Yuval Feldman, Eyal Gamliel, Limor Sahar, Ariel Tikotsky, Nurit Hod, and Hilla Schupak (2019). Do minorities like nudges? The role of group norms in attitudes towards behavioral policy. Judgment and Decision Making, 14(1), 40.
Nitzan, Irit, Talia Rymon, and Jehoshua Eliashberg. “Group Consumption and Word-of-Mouth.” Working paper.