Based on the collaborative and social characteristics, social networking services (SNSs) are growing platforms for consumer-to-consumer conversation including electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM is defined as ‘any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet’ (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, & Gremler, 2004, p.39). Despite its academic and managerial significance, several preliminary studies have examined what determines effective eWOM in SNSs (e.g., Chu & Kim, 2011; Teng, Khong, Goh, & Chong, 2014). Extending these attempts, we empirically investigate what influences consumers’ evaluation of eWOM, especially on Facebook. We suggest a new perspective of focusing on the psychological stream of social identity (Tajel & Turner, 1986) which is a distinctive factor explicit on Facebook. Unlike conventional eWOM platforms like bulletin boards and online communities where the user information is limited due to anonymity or presented in restricted manner (e.g., reputation from ratings by other members) (Dou, Walden, Lee, & Lee, 2012), Facebook provides profile information about users including one’s social group membership (e.g., school, company). This implies that the perception of social identity on Facebook may influence how one evaluates the source and his/her eWOM message.

Current study focused on investigating the effects of the self-dissociation as a thought in which consumers dis-identify or dissociate with the threatened in-group and the escapism as a tendency of consumers’ distracting themselves and avoiding their thoughts about the in-group under severe but adoptable criticism by turning their attention elsewhere on across-domain compensatory consumption intention. And It explored not only the positive roles of undesirability thought against the in-group in consumers’ forming the self-dissociation and the escapism, but also the effects of negative emotion to the in-group felt at the place of being exposed to the criticism against the in-group on the escapism. Research design, data, and methodology: The experiment was performed with the in-group-threatening single factor within-subject design. Questionnaire data were collected from 196 undergraduate students, and the data were used to testing research hypotheses by structural equation model of Amos 21.0. Results: First, both the self-dissociation of consumers’ dis-identifying with the in-group criticized severely by others and the escapism of their deliberately directing their thoughts and distracting their attention away from thinking the in-group positively influenced on the across-domain compensatory consumption intention. Second, the negative emotion positively influenced on the escapism. Third, the undesirability thought to the in-group under the severe criticism positively effected on the self-dissociation as well as the escapism. Putting in the nutshell, the findings of this study are consistent with the idea that consumers can overcome the negative selfdiscrepancy on one dimension of their social identity by distracting themselves and avoiding thinking about the threatened in-group to find meaning on another dimension which might lead them to the place of doing the across-domain compensatory consumption. Conclusions - Focusing on the results of this study, checking which aspects of consumers’ social identity are linked to products or brands is at issue to marketers when the consumers are faced with the criticism against the in-group. The marketers should build the messages about their products or brand not related to the checked aspects, and communicate the messages, to lead the consumers to the place of doing the across-domain compensatory consumption by their products or brands.