Being an ethical or unethical consumer in response to social exclusion: The role of control, belongingness and self‐esteem

Abstract

Social exclusion threatens control, belongingness and self‐esteem, and such threats may produce distinct behavioural intentions. This study hypothesized that thwarted control would increase the intention towards unethical consumer behaviour. Additionally, it hypothesized that inhibiting belongingness and self‐esteem would decrease the intention to engage in unethical consumer behaviour for reconnection. To test the hypotheses, we conducted two online experiments, with 117 (63 females and 54 males) and 188 (91 females and 97 males) participants in the 18–64 age range, using the Cyberball game to manipulate social exclusion. The result of the first study indicated that social exclusion diminished the level of control and increased participants’ willingness to engage in unethical consumer behaviour. The result of the second study indicated that social exclusion decreased levels of belongingness and self‐esteem and this decreased belongingness reduced the intention to engage in unethical consumer behaviour for reconnection. These results show that sense of control and belongingness are two psychological mechanisms through which social exclusion influences unethical behavioural intentions. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study to analyze the role of control, belongingness, and self‐esteem as the mechanism explaining why excluded individuals are more likely to engage in unethical consumer behaviour but less likely to do it for affiliation. Accordingly, the paper presents some important theoretical and practical implications in the consumer behaviour context.

Social exclusion and consumer responses: A comprehensive review and theoretical framework

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“…Excluded individuals are more likely to evaluate the perpetrators of rejection negatively (Twenge et al, 2001), engage in aggressive behaviour (Gabbiadini and Riva, 2018; Reiter‐Scheidl et al, 2018), and extend less help to others (Chung, 2018; Twenge et al, 2007). Exclusionary experiences deplete one's sense of control, thereby increasing one's intention to engage in unethical consumption behaviour (Tunçel & Kavak, n.d.). Ostracism by cooperatives, which thrive on the mutual relationship between customer–member, may result in member–customers' hostile responses (Poon et al, 2013), such as consumers' intention of withdrawing their membership (Benos et al, 2018).…”

The impact of loneliness on compliance with COVID‐19 prevention guidelines

“…Another purpose of Experiment 2 was to test ostracism as an alternative explanation for our findings on loneliness. Other research on consumer behavior has focused on social exclusion (not loneliness), which is most often operationalized through ostracism (Duclos et al, 2013 ; Lu & Sinha, 2017 ; Tunçel & Kavak, 2021 ; Ward & Dahl, 2014 ). Prior research has suggested that ostracized people and lonely people engage in different behavioral patterns.…”

“…In contrast, those who are lonely are more pessimistic and less eager to participate in social interactions (Cacioppo et al, 2006). Furthermore, ostracism serves as an antecedent to a loneliness, but it often takes time and multiple sequences of rejection for the effects of loneliness to appear (Rawat et al, 2022); thus, one can be rejected and experience a decrease in self‐esteem (Tunçel & Kavak, 2021) but not feel lonely, especially if given the opportunity to reaffiliate with the group following an experience of ostracism (Asher & Weeks, 2014). Therefore, we do not predict that ostracism will serve as an alternative explanation for our findings.…”

Does psychological distance and religiosity influence fraudulent customer behaviour?

“…Customer transgressions have been present since the dawn of time (Li et al., 2018; Tunçel & Kavak, 2021; Yang et al., 2017). As the retailing landscape has migrated significantly to the online environment (Anesbury et al., 2016; Davydenko & Peetz, 2020; Yap et al., 2021), the complexity of such transgressions has profoundly increased (Garnefeld et al., 2019; Robertson et al., 2020; Wu, Xu, et al., 2019).…”