ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2017, Vol. 25 ›› Issue (2): 298-311.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2017.00298

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The connotation, influence factors and mechanism of herding effect in online shopping context

WANG Caiyu1; LEI Li2   

  1. (1 Department of Psychology, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang 464000, China) (2 Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China)
  • Received:2015-06-30 Online:2017-02-15 Published:2017-02-15
  • Contact: LEI Li, E-mail: dr.leili@qq.com WANG Caiyu, E-mail: wangcaiyu164@163.com

Abstract:

Herding effect can be broadly defined as the alignment of thoughts or behaviours of individuals in a group (herd) through local interactions rather than centralized coordination. Herding effect in online shopping context can be divided into eight patterns, and it can also take two forms: from word of mouth effect to the following effect. The herding effect could be influenced by the electricity suppliers’ factors, consumer factors, product factors and marketing factors. Its mechanism includes psychological mechanism and neural mechanism. Finally, the paper pointed out the future research direction.

Key words: herding effect, word of mouth effect, following effect, psychological mechanism, neural mechanism