2026-10-13T07:02:22Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/33962095 2026-09-22T05:38:28Z category_1730 portal_316 item_type_3 month_year_09_2026

Supplementary file 1_The role of social media in shaping purchasing behavior among consumers in the Kingdom of Bahrain.pdf Fatima Abdullah Al-Sahhaf (25087843) Sherif Badran (24678271) Communication Studies Bahraini consumer consumer purchasing behavior digital marketing elaboration likelihood model eWOM Instagram social commerce social media <p>Grounded in Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT), the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) Model, and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), this study examines how social media use is associated with purchasing behavior among Bahraini consumers across five decision-journey stages: Need Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of Alternatives, Purchase Decision, and Post-Purchase Behavior. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 384 active social media users; data were analyzed with Pearson correlations, one-way ANOVA (Tukey HSD), and independent-samples t-tests (IBM SPSS v. 27; Cronbach's α = 0.87). Social media influence was strongest at Evaluation of Alternatives (M = 3.54, SD = 0.98; r = .487, p < .001) and weakest at Post-Purchase Behavior (M = 2.48; r = .241, p < .001), revealing a “silent consumption” asymmetry; all five stages were significant (H1 supported). Instagram dominated platform usage (53.3%; M = 4.21) as the primary cognitive-evaluative tool, while TikTok showed a disproportionate influence-to-usage ratio (M = 3.85, 17.5%) via shoppertainment mechanisms. One-Way ANOVA confirmed significant between-platform differences, F(5, 378) = 12.91, p < .001, η² = .146 (H2 supported). No significant differences were found across gender (p = 0.963), age (p = 0.093), education (p = 0.708), or income (p = 0.328)—all with negligible-to-small effect sizes—consistent with a “demographic convergence” pattern that may plausibly be linked to algorithmic personalization, though the mechanism itself was not directly measured. Findings advance stage-differentiated consumer behavior theory and offer actionable implications for social commerce strategy, influencer policy, and GCC digital advertising regulation.</p> 2026-09-22T05:38:28Z Dataset Dataset 10.3389/fcomm.2026.1897772.s001 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Supplementary_file_1_The_role_of_social_media_in_shaping_purchasing_behavior_among_consumers_in_the_Kingdom_of_Bahrain_pdf/33962095 CC BY 4.0