The Conformity Effects of Personalized Advertising: When Consumers Seek Social Anonymity

Personalized advertising has become a dominant strategy on social media, leveraging personal data to deliver tailored content. However, this practice raises privacy concerns by making data collection more noticeable. This research examines how personalized advertising influences conformity behaviors. Across seven experiments, we demonstrate that personalized advertising increases privacy concern, which in turn heightens the need for social anonymity and subsequently prompts conformity behaviors. Additionally, we investigate how perceived self-control capacity moderates this effect and examine how surveillance cues can help marketers design more effective strategies.