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“Our” brand's failure leads to “their” product derogation
Author(s) -
Chae Boyoun Grace,
Dahl Darren W.,
Zhu Rui Juliet
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1016/j.jcps.2017.04.002
Subject(s) - derogation , social identity theory , product (mathematics) , psychology , social psychology , identity (music) , advertising , self affirmation , group (periodic table) , social group , business , chemistry , physics , geometry , mathematics , organic chemistry , acoustics
This research examines when and how consumers' product attitudes and their subsequent word‐of‐mouth behaviors are impacted by negative information about a brand that is associated with their social group. We find that negative information about an in‐group brand threatens the in‐group members' social identity, which in turn results in derogation of the threatening out‐group's product. Importantly, we identify that the communication source of the negative information determines whether a threat to social identity will be realized. The out‐group product derogation effect is observed only when the communication of the negative information comes from an out‐group (vs. in‐group) source. Finally, we provide evidence for our proposed mechanism by showing that a group affirmation exercise mitigates the out‐group product derogation effect we have identified.