UC Irvine

The dissertation investigated the effect of consumers’ social identity on market outcomes, marketing strategies and consumers’ reciprocities. It consists of two essays. The first essay is an analytical modeling study that investigated how consumers’ social identity, ostracism imposed by peers, social group sizes, and identity difference between social groups affect consumer prices and competing sellers’ profitabilities. The second essay is a laboratory experimental study that investigated how consumers’ social identity increases consumers’ valuation of identity-associated products and what outcomes identity-induced consumptions are brought into consumers’ social and economic environments.