부산대학교 도서관

Rumors are widely prevalent in marketplace. It did not start from yesterday, rumors can be problematic and dangerous for the company’s reputation and damages their image. Recently, many companies are given trouble by rumors. As getting invigorates the social media (e.g. Social Network Service and Smart Phone), there is high possibility to shape the vicious rumors without any confirmation whether information is true or not. It affects the companies’ reputation and trust they have built for long time, also sales drop off. Despite numerous denials, the rumor persisted, keeping occur again and again all the times. Refutation purposes to decrease levels of belief in a rumor. Bordia, DiFonzo, and Schulz(2000) showed refutation to be effective in decrease belief in the rumor. Also another study showed that vigorous and active refutation was an effective strategy to counter a rumor (Iyer and Devevec, 1991). The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a refutation is moderated by an individual’s level of identification. To measure identification, participants were presented with various semantic-differential scales. The refutation appeared after rumor was introduced. First establish Study 1 that a variation in identification influences the impact of a rumor on individuals’ beliefs. In Study 2, analyze the effectiveness of a refutation under varying degree of one’s level of identification with the rumor object. According to research result, the response pattern of identification and disidentificaion consumers are very different. Disidentifiers, who engaged in systematic processing, believed the rumor less only when the refutation contained strong arguments. Identifiers, processing heuristically, remained unbelieving in the rumor. Study found that identification is an important moderator of consumer response to negative rumors. These defensive processes alleviate the bad influence of that information, and also can reduce the likelihood of attitude degradation. The current research attests to the value of customer identification for a company. Further theoretical research examines how companies can enhance customers’ identification toward their product would be desirable.