The Influence of Friends on Consumer Spending: The Role of Agency–Communion Orientation and Self-Monitoring

Abstract

Four studies investigate the interactive influence of the presence of an accompanying friend and a consumer's agency–communion orientation on the consumer's spending behaviors. In general, the authors find that shopping with a friend can be expensive for agency-oriented consumers (e.g., males) but not for communion-oriented consumers (e.g., females). That is, consumers who are agency oriented spend significantly more when they shop with a friend (vs. when they shop alone), whereas this effect is attenuated for consumers who are communion oriented. The results also show that this interactive effect is moderated by individual differences in self-monitoring such that friends are especially influential for consumers who are high in self-monitoring, but the effects occur in opposite directions for agency- and communion-oriented consumers (i.e., agentic consumers spend more with a friend, while communal consumers spend less when accompanied by a friend). Finally, the authors test the underlying process and document that the interaction of agency–communion orientation, the presence of a friend, and self-monitoring is reversed when the focal context is changed from “spending for the self” to “donating to a charity.” They conclude with a discussion of implications for research and practice.