Anxiety and Ephemeral Social Media Use in Negative eWOM Creation
基于刺激-有机体-反应理论，通过两项研究发现消费者在分享负面品牌体验时会产生焦虑，并通过使用短暂（自删除）社交媒体来减少消息可见时间以缓解焦虑，这对印象管理目标构成威胁。
Consumers regularly share negative eWOM regarding brand experiences, yet the effects of emotions in this process are unknown. Using the framework of Stimulus–Organism–Response theory we operationalized our study in the context of ephemeral (self-deleting) social media. Across two studies, consumers experienced anxiety during the creation of eWOM, particularly after considering a negative brand experience. Anxiety was manifest in consumers’ decisions to reduce the time availability of online messages and appeased by the use of ephemeral social media. This behavior, in theory, reduces the threat to consumers’ impression management goals caused by sharing negative eWOM within their social networks. Further evidence is found as consumers limit (lengthen) message availability a) when including less (more) positive words in their messages, or b) when sharing about non-economic (economic) experiences. We discuss the implications of consumer emotion and anxiety on the availability of eWOM in social media.