The Selfish Side of Sharing: Effects of Need for Control on Advice Giving

Consumers’ purchasing decisions are often influenced by information provided by others in the form of advice (Cheema and Kaikati 2010; De Bruyn and Lilien 2008; Fitzsimons and Lehmann 2004). Previous literature has often conceptualized advice giving as an altruistic behavior driven by empathic concern for others (Goldsmith and Fitch 1997; Liu and Gal 2011). From this perspective, consumers provide advice to improve or protect others’ well-being (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2004; Sundaram, Mitra, and Webster 1998). Despite the intuitive validity of this argument, we suggest that a self-serving motive, and not empathic concern, sometimes drives advice giving. We argue that consumers sometimes provide advice to fulfill a self-serving motive to restore a lost sense of personal control. Building on the notion that consumers experiencing a threat to their sense of control seek means to restore control (Kay et al. 2008; Whitson and Galinsky 2008), we suggest that giving advice can provide one means of accomplishing such an objective. Thus, we propose that individuals with a need to restore control are more likely to give advice than individuals who do not have such a need.