Gender and Socioeconomic Class Differences in Susceptibility to Interpersonal Influence
Susceptibility to interpersonal influence is a behavioral outcome of the consumer socialization process and can affect the consumers’ purchasing decision-making process and buying behavior. There are three main antecedents to interpersonal influence on susceptibility, namely personal traits, age, and social structural variables. Factors like gender, socioeconomic class, family size, and race are considered social structural variables. This research was conducted to investigate the social structural (gender and socioeconomic class) differences in the levels of susceptibility to interpersonal influence of the population of India. The data was collected through a set of online questionnaires. The research findings indicate that there is no gender or socioeconomic class differences in the levels of susceptibility to interpersonal influence. However, when assessing each dimension of the scale separately, it was found that males are more susceptible to normative interpersonal influence than females.