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This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/57128/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the Strathprints administrator: strathprints@strath.ac.ukThe Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output. Stigmas, or discredited personal attributes, emanate from social perceptions of physical characteristics, aspects of character, and "tribal" associations (e.g., race; Goffman 1963). Extant research has emphasized the perspective of the stigma target, with some scholars exploring how social institutions shape stigma. Yet the ways stakeholders within the sociocommercial sphere create, perpetuate, or resist stigma remain overlooked. The authors introduce and define marketplace stigma as the labeling, stereotyping, and devaluation by and of commercial stakeholders (consumers, companies and their employees, stockholders, and institutions) and their offerings (products, services, and experiences). The authors offer the Stigma Turbine as a unifying conceptual framework that locates marketplace stigma within the broader sociocultural context and illuminates its relationship to forces that exacerbate or blunt stigma. In unpacking the Stigma Turbine, the authors reveal the critical role that market stakeholders can play in (de)stigmatization, explore implications for marketing practice and public policy, and offer a research agenda to further understanding of marketplace stigma and stakeholder welfare.

Addiction does not begin with the harmful effects of being dependent on a particular consumption behaviour such as smoking, alcohol, or illegal drugs. Instead it starts with everyday seemingly benign behaviours that, through psychological, biophysical, and/or environmental triggers, can become harmful and morph into an addiction. We develop a framework based on harm and dependence that can help researchers better understand how consumers could become addicted to various types of everyday benign consumption behaviours (e.g., texting, shopping, plastic surgery, and other types of normally acceptable behaviours). Furthermore, the conceptual framework is based on expanding the concept of addiction to include the pre-addiction process with a focus on this continuum of benign to harmful behavioural consumption. This framework describes how consumers progress from a normal state of consumption into a state of addictive abuse and dependence. The framework discusses key issues and future research that can aid public policy researchers, practitioners, and marketers to better understand the entire pre-addiction process.

Purpose This paper aims to explore the forces at work that negatively influence the self-image perceptions of young women, causing them to strive for an “ultra-thin” ideal. Design/methodology/approach Focus groups explore why and how perceived self-image influences young women’s body and perceptions and, consequently, health. Thematic qualitative analysis explores the realm of information and emotions involved with the thin-ideal. Findings Social contagion theory emerged with a significant impact caused by network influencers and the spread of information and emotions within social networks forces that sustain the need to be ultra-thin, even though there is abundant knowledge about adverse effects. Research limitations/implications Future research should address limitations involving representativeness and generalizability. Practical implications Social marketing programs, including social media, should stress healthy eating habits while focusing on the importance of the self and de-emphasizing the “thin-ideal” image. Originality/value Results will assist in developing more informed and effective prevention programs, including social media campaigns, as preventative healthcare to reduce the risk of the spread of eating disorders and promote psychological health of at-risk young adults.

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If consumers accept rumours without verifying them, considerable damage to individuals or organisations could result. By applying the appraisal theory of emotions, this article provides a framework for clarifying rumour communications by people who identify strongly or weakly with an organisation that is the object of a rumour. Study 1 reveals that when people identify strongly with the rumour object and hear an important rumour, they spread positive information more readily than negative information. They are also more likely to transmit information of high (vs. low) importance when the rumour is positive. Conversely, weak identifiers are equally likely to spread positive and negative information, regardless of importance. Study 2 incorporates a heuristic‐systematic model and demonstrates that strong identifiers process refutations systematically when those refutations refer to a positive, less important rumour. Conversely, they process refutation information heuristically if they confront positive, important rumours or if they receive a refutation of a negative rumour. Identification with the rumour object affects its spread, but rumour objects can develop refutation strategies to halt the spread of negative rumours or encourage the spread of positive rumours about the organisation. Rumour refutation efforts cannot be generalised but instead should be targeted according to consumers' strong or weak identification.

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