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A social identity analysis, based on Hogg's (2000) uncertainty reduction theory, of the emergence and maintenance of ideological belief systems is presented. Uncertainty, particularly self-uncertainty, motivates identification with high-entitativity groups and behaviors that promote entitativity. Under more extreme uncertainty, identification is more pronounced and entitativity can be associated with orthodoxy, hierarchy and extremism, and with ideological belief systems. I develop and describe a social identity and uncertainty reduction analysis of ideology, and contextualize this in a brief discussion of the concept of ideology and in coverage of other contemporary social psychological treatments of ideology, such as social dominance theory, system justification theory, right-wing authoritarianism, belief in a just world, and the protestant work ethic.

Based on uncertainty reduction theory, this study explores how perceived information transparency mitigates users' perceived uncertainty, which in turn influences their actual purchase behavior. In addition, the moderating effects of cultural tightness on the relationship between perceived information transparency and perceived uncertainty are also considered.

Users with the shopping experience on Xiaohongshu are invited to participate in the survey. Finally, 355 valid longitudinal data are collected.

The results indicate that the three dimensions of perceived information transparency (i.e. perceived product transparency, perceived seller transparency and perceived transaction transparency) can reduce users' perceived uncertainty significantly. Besides, the negative impacts of perceived product and seller transparency on users' perceived uncertainty are stronger when cultural tightness is higher. However, cultural tightness does not moderate the relationship between perceived transaction transparency and users' perceived uncertainty.

First, the authors' research extends the uncertainty reduction theory to the context of social commerce. Second, the authors' research explores the boundary condition under which perceived information transparency varies by identifying cultural tightness as the moderator of the relationship between perceived information transparency and uncertainty. Third, the authors' research enriches the understanding of the cultural tightness of China.

The success of social commerce depends on the actual transactions of consumers, which will be prevented in the presence of high uncertainty. However, attention paid to the uncertainty reduction strategies in social commerce is limited, especially from a unified theoretical framework. Based on uncertainty reduction theory (URT), this paper aims to investigate how three uncertainty reduction strategies (i.e. situational normality, perceived effectiveness of social commerce institutional mechanisms (PESIM) and swift guanxi) affect perceived uncertainty in social commerce, which in turn affects buyers' purchase intention and purchase behavior. The moderating effects of PESIM on the relationships between the other two strategies and perceived uncertainty were also tested.

In this study longitudinal data from 211 buyers who have usage experience of Xiaohongshu were collected to test the proposed model and hypotheses.

Results show that the three uncertainty reduction strategies significantly reduce perceived uncertainty. PESIM negatively moderates the relationships between situational normality and perceived uncertainty, swift guanxi and perceived uncertainty. Perceived uncertainty is negatively related to purchase intention. Purchase intention positively affects purchase behavior.

This study focuses on the role of uncertainty reduction mechanisms in promoting purchase behavior through uncertainty reduction and sheds light on the relationships among situational normality, PESIM, swift guanxi and perceived uncertainty based on URT, which have not been extensively studied from a theoretical perspective in social commerce contexts. Besides, this study investigates the moderating role of PESIM, which improves the understanding of the role of swift guanxi and situational normality in reducing perceived uncertainty under the boundary condition of PESIM.

The use of social media and information exchange increased during Covid-19 pandemic because people are isolated and working from home. The use of social media enhances information exchange in a global society, therefore customers are uncertain and not in a better position to take decisions before the situation goes worst everywhere in the world. The current study helps to understand how social media facilitate social and global engagement and information exchange which ultimately leads to the development of the customer psychology of stockpiling. This study aims to develop a research framework which helps to understand the customer psychology of stockpiling during a global pandemic.

This study opted for a social constructionist approach because it can help to understand both individual and social subjective realities with respect to stockpiling behaviour due to the fear and risk of Covid-19 pandemic. For this purpose, the researcher collected data from 40 customers of UK retail stores who actively use social media. The data were collected during telephonic interviews and thematic analysis was used for data analysis.

Results highlighted that institutional communication and social public interpretation of uncertainties and risk enhanced misinformation and sensationalism through social media platforms; therefore, stockpiling behaviour increased during Covid-19 pandemic. The fear of items being out of stock, illness, misinformation, family fear and going out were some of the possible causes that led to the development of panic stockpiling behaviour. The global uncertainty proof, as well as a public social consensus for staying at home and protecting the future also increased customers’ intention to buy in bulk for their future. Although social media played an important role in transferring relevant and timely information, it also increased uncertainty and social proof which may have led to stockpiling of retail products.

The results of this study are beneficial for understanding how Covid-19 creates and enhances uncertainties and risks at both global and national level which developed into customer panic stockpiling behaviour, even when there is no promotional scheme or decrease in prices. This study helps marketers understand the psychology of customer stockpiling during a global pandemic. This study also helps to understand the role of social media, which promotes social interpretations of uncertainties and risk which ultimately enhance panic stockpiling among customers.

Limited research is available which provides an understanding of how social media can play a role in socially generated uncertainties and risks, which enhance misinformation and sensationalism, as well as the development of stockpiling behaviour. This study provided a stockpiling behaviour model based on the theory of uncertainty and social proof. The results of this study are unique as there is limited literature available which connects social media, uncertainties and risk, Covid-19 pandemic and stockpiling behaviour among educated people.

In this chapter, we review relational demography literature underpinned by the similarity–attraction paradigm and status characteristics and social identity theories. We then develop an uncertainty reduction model of relational demography, which describes a two-stage process of uncertainty emergence and reduction in a workgroup setting. The first stage depicts how structural features of the workgroup (workgroup composition) and occupation (the legitimacy of its status hierarchy) induce two forms of uncertainty: uncertainty about group norms and uncertainty about instrumental outcomes. The second part of the model illustrates employees' choice of uncertainty reduction strategies, depending on the type of uncertainty they experience, and the status of their demographic categories. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This study examines the direct and indirect effects of social capital on supply chain performance via supply chain quality integration (SCQI), which refers to integrating supply chain partners from the perspective of quality management. It also examines the moderating role of environmental uncertainty in the link between social capital and SCQI and determines the conditional indirect effect of social capital on supply chain performance via SCQI.

Data were collected using a time-lagged research design through a self-administered survey of supply chain professionals in manufacturing firms in Pakistan. Hayes’ PROCESS Macro was used to test the hypotheses.

The results show a positive relationship between social capital and supply chain performance. SCQI partially mediates the relationship between social capital and supply chain performance. Environmental uncertainty significantly moderates that relationship in such a way that firms that operate under high environmental uncertainty are more likely to use their social capital to develop SCQI than firms that operate under low environmental uncertainty.

The study has practical implications for managers who seek to implement SCQI practices using social capital. Leveraging social capital across the supply chain fosters strong connections and a quality-oriented approach across the supply chain, and improves overall performance. Managers can use the power of social capital to navigate environmental uncertainty.

This study’s originality lies in its drawing on the dynamic capability theory and contingency theory and integrating the dispersed scholarly work on social capital, SCQI, and supply chain performance under the boundary condition of environmental uncertainty.

This study examines how the distribution of opinions and social status combine in a collectively oriented task group to affect perceptions about the correctness of a final decision.

We relied on data from a controlled laboratory experiment to test a series of theoretically derived hypotheses.

The study shows that both the distribution of opinions and status affect perceptions of correctness. It also establishes that the effects of status on uncertainty are strongest when the group is initially evenly split about the correctness of an opinion, and that like the distribution of opinions, the effects of status on uncertainty are curvilinear.

Previous research shows that by integrating research on faction sizes with status characteristics theory (SCT), more accurate predictions of social influence are possible. Assumed therein is that people use information about the distribution of opinions and status to reduce uncertainty about correctness of a choice. The current study establishes this point empirically by examining the effects of the distribution of opinions and status in a four-person, collectively oriented task group. Future research should consider groups of different sizes and other moderating factors.

This study advances and elaborates upon previous research on social influence that integrates research on faction sizes with SCT.

Negotiation is important for career success. Therefore, this study draws from social expectancy and self-regulation theories to develop a model proposing that social class background (SCB) influences the ease with which achievement striving translates into propensity to negotiate. Specifically, the authors examine how SCB moderates the relationship between achievement striving and negotiation propensity via a key mediator—status-based identity uncertainty—reflective of one's (un)certainty about their societal standing.

The authors collected data across three surveys over a four-week period from 460 participants. The authors assessed negotiation propensity by asking participants to rank-order behavioral reactions, representative of different degrees of negotiation engagement, in response to three scenarios.

The positive effects of achievement striving on negotiation propensity are attenuated for individuals with lower SCBs, in part, because achievement-oriented individuals with lower SCBs experience a heightened sense of status-based identity uncertainty. Although achievement striving is an asset for initiating negotiations, it appears to disproportionately benefit those with higher SCBs.

Individuals higher in achievement striving and with lower SCBs may approach the negotiation process differently than those with higher SCBs. This dynamic serves as another mechanism through which cumulative (dis)advantage processes in career success may occur over time.

Past research argues that identity-linking messages must use established descriptors of the social group (i.e. prototypical identity appeals) to be effective. The authors show that less established descriptors (i.e. identity-linking messages low in prototypicality) can be optimal for an important customer segment, namely, for those that affectively identify with the social group. This is because of the distinct self-motives underlying the cognitive and affective social identity dimensions.

A pilot and two experimental studies were conducted, using gender and nationality as the target identities.

Consumers feel more hopeful and have higher purchase intention for products advertised using identity depictions that fit with their predominant (uncertainty-reduction or self-enhancement) self-motive. Consumers predominantly high in affective/cognitive social identity prefer identity-linking messages that are low/high in prototypicality. An abstract mindset reverses these effects by encouraging a similarity focus.

Future work should identify potential boundary conditions of the findings. Further, all studies use ascribed social groups. Future work should explore whether consumers relate differently to different social group, such as achieved groups, non-human groups or aspirational groups.

Adverts using established descriptors of a brand’s target social group may no longer fit the brand’s positioning. Understanding when and when not to use less established group descriptors to market brands is important for practitioners.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to explore the conditions under which priming consumers’ identity using less/more established (i.e. low/high in prototypicality) descriptors has a beneficial, or detrimental, effect on consumers’ purchase intention. In understanding these effects, the authors draw on consumers’ self-motives underlying cognitive and affective identification, a distinction not yet made in the identity-linking communications literature. The authors also explore the mediating role of hope – a central motivating emotion – in identity marketing.