Supplementary file 1_The role of social media in shaping purchasing behavior among consumers in the Kingdom of Bahrain.pdf

<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.