TY - JOUR

T1 - When pain is pleasure

T2 - Identifying consumer psychopaths

AU - Karampournioti, Evmorfia

AU - Hennigs, Nadine

AU - Wiedmann, Klaus Peter

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Copyright: Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2018/3/3

Y1 - 2018/3/3

N2 - In almost every product category, companies have incorporated the emergence of ethical and environmental consumerism into their business activities. Although ethical consumers are supposed to be concerned with a broad spectrum of ethical issues and demand that products and business practices meet their moral principles, a critical perspective supports the assumption that a dark side of consumer personality also exists. Consequently, the role of consumers has become a top priority, especially in the specific ascription of bright and dark personality traits when evaluating cruel business practices and unethical behavior. The paper aims to investigate whether anthropomorphic communication about cruel business tactics affects the formation of explicit and implicit brand attitudes and to shed light on the role of consumers’ personality traits in perceiving anthropomorphic cues and in forming brand attitudes. Referencing the Dark Triad of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy in relation to animal cruelty in the cosmetics industry, the results of an empirical study (N = 610) provide evidence that perceptions of brands or companies conducting cruel practices differ between consumers with more distinct Dark Triad traits and those with stronger empathetic traits.

AB - In almost every product category, companies have incorporated the emergence of ethical and environmental consumerism into their business activities. Although ethical consumers are supposed to be concerned with a broad spectrum of ethical issues and demand that products and business practices meet their moral principles, a critical perspective supports the assumption that a dark side of consumer personality also exists. Consequently, the role of consumers has become a top priority, especially in the specific ascription of bright and dark personality traits when evaluating cruel business practices and unethical behavior. The paper aims to investigate whether anthropomorphic communication about cruel business tactics affects the formation of explicit and implicit brand attitudes and to shed light on the role of consumers’ personality traits in perceiving anthropomorphic cues and in forming brand attitudes. Referencing the Dark Triad of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy in relation to animal cruelty in the cosmetics industry, the results of an empirical study (N = 610) provide evidence that perceptions of brands or companies conducting cruel practices differ between consumers with more distinct Dark Triad traits and those with stronger empathetic traits.

KW - animal testing

KW - anthropomorphism

KW - cosmetics industry

KW - Dark Triad

KW - empathy

KW - explicit and implicit attitudes

KW - IAT

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042732128&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/mar.21085

DO - 10.1002/mar.21085

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85042732128

VL - 35

SP - 268

EP - 282

JO - Psychology and Marketing

JF - Psychology and Marketing

SN - 0742-6046

IS - 4

ER -