A Model of Consumer Cynicism – Antecedents and Consequences

Many consumers today are justified in the adoption of a newfound cynicism as they often get exploited, swindled and cheated by poorly conceived marketing practices. Consumers’ responses can range from caution and complaining, to more active behaviours, even culture jamming or boycotting. These responses predictably affect consumer behaviour. However, the psychological causes and behavioural effects of consumer cynicism are not well understood in the literature. This study addresses this knowledge gap by proposing a dynamic model of consumer cynicism, and an experimental design to capture development of cynical consumer behaviours under conditions of goal and value incongruence over time. Introduction Consumer cynicism is a growing phenomenon (Helm 2004) which has negative consequences for both firms and consumers (Austin et al. 2005; Forehand and Grier 2003). By looking at the effects of cynicism we aim to contribute to understanding of its impact on marketing activities, by studying the causes of cynicism we make progress towards possible intervention strategies that may help prevent or remedy cynical behaviours. Consumer cynicism is an under researched area. There is no accepted definition of consumer cynicism in the marketing literature. The main definitional approaches can be found in cynicism studies outside of consumer behaviour, including personality (Adams and John 1997; Cook and Medley 1954; Pope et al. 1993), organisational behaviour (Andersson 1996; Andersson and Bateman 1997; Dean et al. 1998; Wanous et al. 2000), societal (Andersson 1996; Andersson and Bateman 1997; Mirvis and Kanter 1991) and political (Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd 2004; Lee 2003; Miller 1974). In these studies cynicism is often related to distrust, dissatisfaction and disconfirmed expectations. Expanding on these approaches we propose to differentiate consumer cynicism from existing constructs, by defining it as the attitude of suspicion in the marketplace, where suspicion incorporates the belief that firms are motivated by self-interest. We then analyse the effects and the causes of consumer cynicism, which we test via a longitudinal experimental design. Consequences of Consumer Cynicism Attribution theory predicts that the perceived reason for a product’s failure has an influence on a consumer’s response (Bettman 1979). Thus when consumers blame dissatisfactory outcomes on the self-interested motives of the firm, they respond with a range of specific and predictable behaviours. In this study we analyse a set of five specific behaviours that may account for the behavioural component of consumer cynicism (Figure 2). These range from cautious behaviour, which can be observed in the risk-handling strategies consumers develop to cope with the hazards of buying, to extreme behaviour aimed at retribution. However, the opportunity costs involved in engaging in more active behaviours can be high (McKelvey 1969), or there may be a preference for familiarity (Hales and Shams 1991) hence our first expectation is that escalation of behavioural responses requires escalation of cynicism. When a consumer believes self-interested motives to be influencing a firm’s behaviour, complaint behaviour may occur. Several important variables have been found to explain why consumers complain, including perceived costs (Richins 1980), attributions (Folkes 1984) and prior knowledge (Day 1984). Significant positive relationships have been found between the attribution of blame on the firm and complaint behaviour, but these are mediated by expectancy value judgments (Singh and Wilkes 1996), including probability of complaint success (Day 1984; Richins 1983) and the significance of the consumption event (Day 1984). Word-of-mouth is defined as informal communication between consumers about products and services (Westbrook 1987) . Previous research has overwhelmingly found satisfaction to be a determinant of positive word-of-mouth (Oliver and Swan 1989; Spreng et al. 1995). Since self-interest is an important contingency variable on personal communication (Wiener et al. 1990), it is likely that suspicion of self-interest will provoke disparaging behaviour. A number of studies show that most dissatisfied customers do not complain (Andreason 1985; Chebat et al. 2005; Stephens and Gwinner 1998). In addition, it is likely that a vast majority of those who do not complain would simply leave (Downton 2002). Switching behaviour can also be seen as a form of payback, because they have been let down and are not deserving of their repatronage (Bougie et al. 2003). For some, their suspicion is no longer, and has become a belief that the firm only cares for itself, thus the cynical consumer switches in anticipation of dissatisfaction (Kanter and Mirvis 1989). In severe cases consumer rebellion is a form of retribution, which extends beyond traditional complaining. Disruptive and even violent protests are widely publicised (Lacayo 1999), but more benign examples of retribution exist, including registration to the Australian Direct Marketing Association’s ‘Do-Not-Call’ register (Shoebridge 2005). Dobscha (1998) argues this reflects a desire to correct the degradation produced by marketing practices. This behaviour is also a response to disillusion of being tacitly manipulated for the purposes of marketing and market forces (Austin et al. 2005). The responses of caution, complaint, negative word-of-mouth, exit/switching and retribution, represent behaviours documented in the literature and potentially capture the hierarchical effect of increasing cynicism. These effects deserve further examination because of their potentially significant implications for firms and consumers (Austin et al. 2005; Forehand and Grier 2003). In the competitive marketplace the relationship between the firm and the consumer is always tentative; as cynicism increases in strength, the probability that the consumer will remain with the firm becomes smaller, with one extreme involving counterattack. Such cynical reactions can be disruptive to the firm’s marketing activities reducing or blocking their effectiveness, while lowering consumers’ overall welfare. Antecedents of Consumer Cynicism Despite the absence of accepted model of consumer cynicism, the extant literature suggests consumer cynicism may best be represented by a dynamic approach (Mills and Keil 2005). Cynicism can be conceptualised as a learned attitude resulting from violated expectations (Andersson and Bateman 1997; Johnson and O'Leary-Kelly 2003). The Bayesian updating approach proposed by Rust et al (1999) suggests that, consumers adjust their predictive expectation distributions based on new information. As the consumer is subjected to more negative disconfirmation, there is greater certainty that future outcomes will be dissatisfactory, leading to a predictive expectation of dissatisfaction Figure 1. The Proposed Dynamic Model of Consumer Cynicism. ower nd f Predictive expectations allow consumers to anticipate outcomes based on cues in the environment (Summers and Granbois 1977). Thus, the consumer can make a response based on specific cues provided by the firm in the marketplace. According to the self-regulation hypothesis (Higgins 1997), cues acquire predictive p over time (Shanks 1986) a may be used in formation o preferences and attitudes. Cues of goal incongruence can indicate the extent to which an event or an outcome is incongruent with an individual’s wants and desires (Nyer 1997). Thus, if the resulting disconfirmation continues over time, expected dissatisfaction may develop. This suggests that goal incongruence is a potential driver of cynicism, hence our expectation is that: Outcome