INTEREST-GROUP VS. PEER PRESSURE: A CIRCLE-EMBEDDED SOR MODEL OF SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTS ON MUSEUM VISIT INTENTIONS AMONG CHINESE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Keywords:
Social media, Museum visit intention, Emotional identification, Social pressure, University students, Cultural consumptionAbstract
This study aims to explore the impact mechanism of social media on the willingness of Chinese university students to visit museums, and construct a "circle embedded SOR" model that integrates social circle theory. The innovation of the research lies in using emotional identity as the core mediating variable and subdividing social pressure into two dimensions - interest circle normative pressure and peer social pressure, in order to reveal the social psychological mechanisms behind cultural participation behavior in the digital age.The study used a cross-sectional survey method to collect 892 valid questionnaires, and conducted empirical tests using correlation analysis, regression analysis, and structural equation modeling. Research has found that: (1) Social media content can effectively enhance the emotional identification of college students and directly promote their willingness to visit; (2) Emotional identification plays a partial mediating role between social media content and willingness to visit, where content indirectly influences visit decisions by stimulating emotional identification; (3) The normative pressure of interest circles and peer social pressure both have a positive moderating effect on the path of "emotional identification → willingness to visit", but the former has a significantly stronger impact than the latter. The above conclusion indicates that interest oriented social circles play a dominant role in transforming online activities into offline visitation behavior. On a theoretical level, this study expands the explanatory boundaries of the SOR model in the context of social media; On a practical level, it provides a decision-making reference for museums to develop digital participation strategies for young people that are "segmented and precise".References
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