Master thesis by Melissa Lyklema
S3269892
Introduction & relevance of topic
What is inequality?
Emerging global trend
Negative economic
consequences
Individual behavior in
consumption domain
Background
•
Inequality effects people’s behavior which causes differences
between people
•
Large differences between each other
--> financial threat
•
Financial threat leads to lack of control
•
Automatically restore control
•
Compensatory consumption
Background
•
Psychological states -> making product decisions
•
Framing advertisements
•
Experience in different ways
•
Preference for a particular advertisement
depends on how a product is framed.
•
Individualistic -> focused on themselves
•
Prefer product that require more effort -> driven
their own outcomes
•
Higher desire for control -> more likely to accept
new product when it is framed
Hypotheses
H1
Consumers who perceive
higher economic
inequality, in comparison
with consumers who
experience low inequality,
will prefer a product when
it promises to restore
personal control.
H2
Perceived economic
inequality increases
preference for
control-restoring ad appeals
relative to neutral appeals.
H3
Consumers who
experience high inequality,
compared to consumers
who experience low
inequality, will evaluate a
control restoring product
even more positively
Experiment – participants & design
N = 291
47 % men
53 % women
Age
M = 38.33
SD = 11.599
United States of
America
Recruited on
Amazon Mechanical
Turk
Procedure – inequality manipulation
Low inequality
vs.
High inequality
Procedure – product frame
Results
H1
Consumers who perceive
higher economic
inequality, in comparison
with consumers who
experience low inequality,
will prefer a product when
it promises to restore
personal control.
H2
Perceived economic
inequality increases
preference for
control-restoring ad appeals
relative to neutral appeals.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Low inequality High inequality
