Effort or Ease: The Impact of Sharing Self-improvement vs. Hedonic Behaviors on Personal Brand Evaluation

Chenhan Ruan¹Xiaoyang Zhang¹Fenglian Zhuo²Zhihuang Lu¹Juan Li^1*

• ¹Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China
• ²Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

Daily activities, as ubiquitous and relatable aspects of human life, have become a pivotal resource for social media influencers to build personal brands. Among them, two major types emerge: hedonic behaviors (e.g., eating dessert) that pursue immediate sensory pleasure and emotional well-being; and self-improvement behaviors (e.g., learning) that focus on personal development for eudaimonic well-being. Although previous studies mainly examined factors influencing consumers' preferences between hedonic and self-improvement options, few explored how these two types of post serve as signaling cues to influence consumer inferences. Therefore, based on Social Identity Theory, this study examines the impact of sharing hedonic versus self-improvement posts on personal brand evaluation. Across four experiments, we demonstrate that self-improvement (vs. hedonic) posts lead to positive inferences about sharers' intrinsic motivation (Study 1), which in turn promotes the personal brand evaluation (Study 2-4). Moreover, two boundary conditions moderate the positive effect of self-improvement posts: it is diminished in societies with low social mobility (Study 3) or among viewers who share high similarity with bloggers (Study 4). Overall, the findings enrich the understanding of social identification in posted activities, and provide practical implications for personal brand promotion.