Person Perception

Although much of my research has examined issues related to the self, I also study how consumption impacts our perception of others (e.g., Hingston, McManus, and Noseworthy 2017, Journal of Consumer Psychology). Society and popular culture increasingly advocate for being authentic to one’s true self. However, there may be unforeseen drawbacks for doing so, for the self and others. In a project with Jim Bettman and Katherine Du, I predict two potential pitfalls of authenticity. Regarding the self, when consumers express their authentic self (e.g., staying true to one’s principles) they experience greater moral self-regard, which could facilitate a licensing effect that enables them to later act in morally questionable ways.

Regarding others, when consumers observe authenticity in other people, they view them more positively, which may also excuse poor behavior. This illustrates how strategic action should not always be considered nefarious (e.g., maximizing value in an exchange relationship) and, likewise, authenticity should not always be considered virtuous.

An additional aspect of person perception I am studying is how brands influence the empathy consumers have for others (McManus, Carvalho and Trifts, in prep). For example, how much do you empathize with a person who loves the brands you hate? Recent theorizing argues that one’s intentional consumption choices can offend others (Liu, Lamberton, Bettman, & Fitzsimons, 2019). In several experiments, using a person perception paradigm, participants (American and Canadian adults) felt less empathy for a target person who wore personally unfavorable brands. Overall, unfavorable brands exerted a stronger influence on judgments than favorable brands (more than 4.5 times stronger), a phenomenon we coin the brand negativity bias. Experiment 1 established that unfavorable brands reduce empathy toward a target, which in turn has a negative impact on a new product merely associated with that same brand. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and demonstrated that it is driven by reductions in perceived similarity between the observer and the target. Experiments 3 and 4 explore the basis for this negativity (e.g., moral, ethical violations) and show that we can reverse the effect by identifying a context where consumers actually prefer a personally unfavorable brand. I propose that seemingly innocuous brand logos are often a first piece of information people learn about strangers, with implications for job interviews, dating, and charitable donations.