Conservative consumers are more likely than their liberal counterparts to complain across various service contexts, according to new research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. The findings provide evidence for the role of entitlement in explaining ideological differences in complaining behavior.
Previous research suggested that conservatives complain less than liberals due to their higher level of system justification motivation (SJM), which involves defending institutions and perceiving policies as fair. However, this account may not apply to service contexts where self-interested motivations are prioritized over system justification. Therefore, the researchers aimed to investigate whether conservatives would complain more than liberals due to their higher sense of entitlement.
“I have always been interested in political ideology as an area of research,” said study author Steven Shepherd, an associate professor and William S. Spears Chair in Marketing and International Business at Oklahoma State University.
“Some recent research in marketing finds that liberal consumers are more inclined to complain that conservatives, and although their theorizing makes sense, a lot of political ideology theory and research suggests that conservatives might in fact complain more than liberals. So we wanted to explore that side of things and provide a more complete account of how political ideology relates to consumer complaining.”
The researchers conducted a series of three studies to explore the relationship between political ideology and complaining behavior.
In Study 1, the researchers recruited 301 American participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The participants rated their likelihood of complaining across six scenarios (e.g., “Imagine you are getting a takeout order from a restaurant and it is taking much longer than usual for it to be ready. How likely are you to give a smaller tip because of this?”). They also completed measures of political ideology, consumer entitlement, and SJM.
Political ideology was measured using a single item, where participants indicated their position on a spectrum ranging from “very liberal” to “very conservative.” This allowed the researchers to categorize participants as either liberal or conservative based on their responses.
To measure consumer entitlement, participants responded to an 11-item scale developed by Butori (2010). The scale assessed participants’ beliefs about their deservingness of special treatment or benefits as consumers. Participants indicated their level of agreement or disagreement with statements such as “I deserve better treatment than the average customer.”
Finally, participants completed an eight-item scale to measure their level of system justification motivation. The SJM scale captured participants’ tendencies to defend and view overarching institutions, organizations, and norms as fair and just. Participants rated their agreement or disagreement with statements such as “Most of the time, the system works well and is fair.”
The results showed that political ideology, consumer entitlement, SJM, and complaining intentions were positively correlated. The researchers found that conservatives had higher consumer entitlement, which predicted increased complaining intentions. This relationship held even when controlling for demographic variables.
To further explore the findings, Study 2 focused on the influence of social comparison and the perception of deservingness. The researchers recruited 791 American participants from MTurk. They presented participants with a scenario in which they overheard another customer receiving a special discount due to their status as a student or a police officer.
The researchers predicted that conservatives would feel less entitled and show lower complaining intentions when a police officer received a discount, as conservatives tend to view the police as a fair authority. The results supported this hypothesis, revealing that conservatives showed higher entitlement in the student condition and lower entitlement in the police officer condition. Moreover, conservatives exhibited higher complaining intentions in the student condition but not in the police officer condition.
In Study 3, the researchers extended their investigation to service recoveries. They recruited 594 American participants from MTurk and presented them with a scenario where they experienced a delay in a restaurant delivery. Participants were assigned to either a control condition, where they received an apology and a standard discount, or a special treatment condition, where they were told their situation was unique and received a special discount. In line with the previous studies, conservatives showed higher complaining intentions in the control condition but not in the special treatment condition.
“We consistently found that conservative consumers expressed an increased willingness to complain about various service experiences. This was due to conservatives on average being higher in consumer entitlement; that is, feeling that they are not just ‘any other customer’ and are more deserving of special treatment and consideration than other customers.”
These results contribute to a better understanding of ideological differences in complaining behavior and highlight the role of consumer entitlement as a novel mechanism and predictor in consumer political ideology research. However, the researchers note that future research utilizing behavioral data from different sources and exploring potential moderating factors can provide further insights into the relationship between ideology and complaining behavior.
“The predicted effect was quite robust across a range of different everyday service situations. Throughout the research we didn’t find evidence to the contrary; that is, that liberals complain more than conservatives. In the paper we propose a number of contextual factors, either individually or in combination, that might play a role, and future research might be able to more precisely pin down exactly when and why conservatives vs. liberals complain more vs. less.”
The study, “On the political right, the customer is always right: Political ideology, entitlement, and complaining“, was authored by Steven Shepherd, Hesam Teymouri Athar, and Sahel Zaboli.
