Inferences About Others’ Consumption Motives Influence What Consumers Expect from Similar Experiences

Abstract When consumers see someone else’s experience shared on social media, they often infer whether the sharer had relatively intrinsic or extrinsic motives for originally engaging in this experience. While prior research has documented how these inferred motives affect viewers’ social evaluations of the sharer, the present research demonstrates that these inferences can shift viewer beliefs about the experience itself. The findings from six studies show that when viewers infer a sharer originally had either relatively intrinsic or extrinsic motives for consuming an experience they shared about, it increases viewer beliefs that the experience is well suited to satisfy that same type of motive. This shift in the expected motive-based value of the experience, in turn, influences viewers’ behavior during and after their own engagement in a similar experience. However, when viewers are highly familiar with the experience that was shared, the expected motive-based value of the shared experience is not influenced by viewers’ inferences about the sharer’s original motives. Altogether, this research documents a new social influence phenomenon on social media and discusses managerial implications of these findings.