CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,469Digital Marketing and Social MediaMarketing and Advertising StrategiesConsumer Behavior and Marketing Influence

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 205 of the 207 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: A review and directions for future research

Berger, Jonah·2014·Journal of Consumer Psychology
DOI 10.1016/j.jcps.2014.05.002
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

People often share opinions and information with their social ties, and word of mouth has an important impact on consumer behavior. But what drives interpersonal communication and why do people talk about certain things rather than others? This article argues that word of mouth is goal driven and serves five key functions (i.e., impression management, emotion regulation, information acquisition, social bonding, and persuasion). Importantly, I suggest these motivations are predominantly self‐ (rather than other) serving and drive what people talk about even without their awareness. Further, these drivers make predictions about the types of news and information people are most likely to discuss. This article reviews the five proposed functions and well as how contextual factors (i.e., audience and communication channel) may moderate which functions play a larger role. Taken together, the paper provides insight into the psychological factors that shape word of mouth and outlines additional questions that deserve further study.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.jcps.2014.05.002

Cites

205 of 205 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 207 references

Research works printed but not linked: 23

  1. 10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497 · DOI · Paper page
  2. Belk R.W., 1971, Proceedings of the American Marketing Association's Educators Conference, 419
  3. Bughin J., 2010, A new way to measure word‐of‐mouth marketing, McKinsey Quarterly
  4. Bui K.‐V.T., 1994, Influence strategies in dating relationships: The effects of relationship satisfaction, gender, and perspective, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 9, 429
  5. Z.Chen N.Lurie.Temporal contiguity and the negativity bias in online word‐of‐mouthPresented at the Behavioral Decision Research in Management Conference Boulder CO.2012
  6. Dichter E., 1966, How word of mouth advertising works, Harvard Business Review, 44, 147
  7. Dubois D., 2013, The dangers of strong ties: How interpersonal closeness influences word‐of‐mouth valence, INSEAD Working paper
  8. Engel J.E., 1993, Consumer behavior
  9. 10.1177/002224298705100107 · DOI
  10. Fiske S.T., 2001, Representations of the social: bridging research traditions, 249
  11. Gross J.J., 2008, Handbook of emotions, 497
  12. Higgins E.T., 1981, Social Cognition: The Ontario Symposium, 343
  13. Katz E., 1955, Personal influence
  14. Keller E., 2009, Comparing online and offline word of mouth: Quantity, quality, and impact
  15. E.Keller B.Libai.A holistic approach to the measurement of WOMPresented at the ESOMAR Worldwide Media Measurement Conference Stockholm.2009
  16. 10.1016/S1057-7408(08)80015-0 · DOI
  17. Malinowski B., 1923, The meaning of meaning
  18. Mesquita B. G. (1993).Cultural variations in emotions. A comparative study of Dutch Surainamese and Turkish People in the Netherlands. Unpublished PhD thesis University of Amsterdam: Amsterdam.
  19. Misner I.R., 1999, The world's best known marketing secret: Building your business with word‐of‐mouth marketing
  20. Petty R.E., 2003, Comprehensive handbook of psychology
  21. 10.1353/lan.1974.0010 · DOI · Paper page
  22. Vergara A. (1993). Sex and gender identity: Differences in social knowledge on emotions and in ways of sharing them.Unpublished doctoral dissertation Universidad del Pais Vasco San Sebastian Spain.
  23. Wittels H., 2012, Humblebrag: The art of false modesty

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 901–1,000 of 1,001

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Berger, J.
Affiliations
University of Pennsylvania (US)
Corresponding author
Berger, Jonah
ORCID
Berger, Jonah
Venue
Journal of Consumer Psychology
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2014-05-19
Volume
24
Issue
4
Pages
586-607
ISSN
  • 1057-7408 (ISSN-L)
  • 1532-7663
DOI
10.1016/j.jcps.2014.05.002
OpenAlex
W2044636434
Cited by
1,469
References
207
Citations by year
2026: 98 · 2025: 139 · 2024: 150 · 2023: 151 · 2022: 162 · 2021: 169 · 2020: 148 · 2019: 137 · 2018: 123 · 2017: 101 · 2016: 60 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 3
FWCI
205.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor (vor)
Locations
Journal of Consumer Psychology (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Digital Marketing and Social Media
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Marketing and Advertising Strategies
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Behavior and Marketing Influence
Keywords
word of mouth, interpersonal communication, consumer behavior, impression management, emotion regulation, information acquisition, social bonding, persuasion, self-serving motivation, audience effects, communication channels, news sharing

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review