Master Thesis MSc. Marketing Management
THE EFFECT OF WEALTH INEQUALITY ON CONSUMER PRODUCT
CHOICE AND THE MODERATING EFFECT OF SYSTEM
JUSTIFICATION
By: Miguel Luigi Schalkwijk S2524198
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
Department of Marketing
Supervisors
First Supervisor: Dr. S. Albalooshi Second Supervisor: Dr. J.A. Voerman
Miguel Schalkwijk Koeriersterweg 16A 9727AB – Groningen Phone: +31 637427753
Abstract
Inequality is a rising problem in the developed world, especially in the United States. It has been related to a host of economic outcomes, such as economic crises, lower economic growth and stability and the concentration of economic power. A gap in the literature presents itself in the effect of inequality on consumer choice. I hypothesize that inequality can invoke a conformist response in consumers moderated by the system justification ideology. After conducting a survey on Amazon’s MTurk I run a linear regression and find there is no discernible effect of inequality on product choice. After running additional tests I conclude the product endorsement manipulation is not perceived correctly which may have influenced the results. Further research is therefore needed to confirm these results in order to make a strong conclusion on the effect of inequality on consumer product choice.
Table of contents
Abstract 2
Introduction 4
Literature review 5
Inequality and its consequences 5
Is equality preferred in all situations? 5
Consumer product choice: Inequality and Conformity 6 Social Identity theory and the system justification ideology 8
Methodology & Conceptual model 11
Methodology 11
Participants and design 11
Procedure 12
Data Analysis 13
Dependent variable & Moderator 13
Descriptive statistics 14
Results and Discussion 14
Manipulation checks 14
Results main analysis 15
Discussion 16
Conclusion 17
References 18
Introduction
Literature review
Inequality and its consequences. Wealth is unequally distributed, much more so than income, a large part is located in the hands of a tiny few. After the great depression of the 20th century the United States wealth inequality stood at a relatively low level. The wealthiest
1% of the population held about 30% of all wealth1, this level did not rise much until the
1970’s when it started increasing rapidly (Keister & Moller, 2000). The great recession of the 21st century has not stopped the increase of inequality. The GINI coefficient for wealth stood
at 0.82 in 2007 by 2016 this number had risen to 0.86 a tremendous increase for such a short period (M. Kuhn, M. Schularick, U. Steins, 2018). Societies care about inequality, large inequality can signal a lack of opportunity and social mobility. Additionally it has large negative impacts on economic growth, economic stability, the concentration of political power, sub-optimal use of human resources (Stiglitz, 2012). High levels of inequality polarise societies and negatively influence economic growth and the opportunities of future generations as it has been found to cause economic crises (Kumhof, Rancière, Winant, 2015). Inequality has also been found to increase crime, specifically the effect on burglary has been found to be strong and robust (Cloe, 2008). Additional evidence from Mexico points to an increase in violent crime as well. During the drug war period 2007-2010 every 1 point increment in the GINI-coefficient resulted in an increase of 36% in drug related murders (Enamorado et al., 2016). Inequality has also been linked to an increase in health problems. Pickett and Wilkinson (2015) conducted a literature review on inequality and its impact on health. They conclude the large body of evidence supports the view that inequality negatively affects population health and wellbeing. More recently research has focused on inequality’s effect on a broader range of subjects. Research has found that high inequality leads to higher risk taking (Payne, Brown-Iannuzzi, & Hannay, 2017) and it also leads people to be less generous (Côté, House, & Willer, 2015). Inequality has large and far reaching societal impacts and the current trend for most of the developed world is a cause for worry. Is equality preferred in all situations? Some level of inequality can provide people with powerful economic incentives, improving society as a whole. Research shows that people prefer equality in relatively small groups but when asked about the distribution on the
1Data are from the Survey of the Financial Characteristics of Consumers for 1962 and the Survey of
country level people actually support an unequal distribution of resources (Starmans, Sheskin, & Bloom, 2017). Norton and Ariely (2011) showed that Americans disapprove of large degrees of wealth inequality and they prefer a much more equal society in term of wealth. Their research found that participants preferred a level of wealth inequality close to the actual level of Sweden. Using a panel of data Oishi, Kesebir, & Diener (2011) find that Americans were on average happier when inequality was lower. They explain that this inverse relationship between inequality and happiness is driven by trust and perceived fairness. The relationship was only found for lower-income households and was not explained by household income but the aforementioned trust and perceived fairness. These papers show that on average Americans are dissatisfied with the current level of inequality. Considering these results one would suggest that people would on average want to move to a more equal society and support policies that move towards this goal. However, the opposite result has been found by Bartels (2005), he found that because people do not connect inequality to certain policies they do not favour redistributive policies and actually support policies that increase inequality. Savani & Rattan (2012) used the concept of choice to explain this phenomenon. They find that introducing the option of choice has a positive effect on the endorsement of unequal distributions of wealth. This makes people less likely to support redistributive policies. After thinking about choice participants were also less likely to see inequality as a problem and less likely to see societal factors as the culprit of inequality. By providing the option of choice participants justified the level of wealth inequality in their society. The mere option of choice activates the belief that personal agency determines life outcomes and this then leads people to legitimize inequality.
Caruso, Vohs, Baxter, & Waytz (2012) found that merely exposing people to the concept of money increased their endorsement of system justification beliefs. And in turn these beliefs foster the endorsement of an unequal system. System justification pertains to the ways in which people justify the status quo in subjects such as the structures of the economic, social and political system (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004; Jost, & Hunyady, 2002).
preferred level found in the literature. The psychological mechanisms in place resulting in a justification of high levels of inequality are formidable.
Consumer product choice: Inequality and Conformity. Literature has identified two modes of information processing: systematic processing and heuristic processing (Chaiken, 1980). The use of heuristics to process information is a less effortful way of processing information than systematic processing. Using heuristics is the process of using simple decision rules by focusing on a specific subset of all available information. Research has shown that especially in low-motivation situations people tend to rely on easily processed heuristics cues for their decision making (Chaiken, 1980). Product endorsement or consensus related cues are a heuristic cue people use to process information and make a quick decision. Maheswaran and Chaiken (1991) find that consumers prefer products based on congruent consensus information. This means that if a majority of people like/endorse a product this positively influences others opinion of that product.
Product endorsement can also be linked to reference groups, these are classified as groups that have an effect on an individual’s behaviour. Bearden and Etzel (1982) found that reference groups can have an informational influence, based in the psychological need to make informed and correct decisions. The informational influence is especially relevant in majority endorsed products. The use of the reference group construct is widespread in marketing, a classic example are the toothpaste commercials containing the phrase ‘7 out of 10 dentists recommend this product’. Consumers use information on product endorsement as a simple heuristic cue due to the informational influence of the reference group.
research. This principle states that we use the actions of others to find out what is correct and is often used in advertising. The approval of others can thus drive consumer choice especially when important product attributes cannot be observed before consuming the product (Fennis & Stroebe, 2016).
Loneliness on the other hand is one of the drivers of consumer choice for minority endorsed products. Lonely people prefer to be alone and because of this perceive themselves to be different from others (Bell, 1993). According to Wang et al. this perceived uniqueness is the reason lonely people prefer minority endorsed products. A possible moderating factor in this relationship is social scrutiny of product choice, which has been shown by to drive a conformist response in lonely consumers. Emotions such as fear have also been shown to promote conformist responses. This happens because fear promotes adaptive strategies such as banding together with others. These adaptive strategies drive the effectiveness of social proof (i.e. the choice of majority endorsed products) (Griskevicius, 2009).
When consumers witness moral violations a psychological need to restore order is elicited. Subsequently this increases consumer’s acceptance of conformist attitudes and results in an increased liking of majority-endorsed products (Dong, & Zhong, 2017). Consumers use symbolic consumption, the purchase of majority endorsed products, to cope with the negative events and feelings associated with the moral violations.
When inequality is high it could be perceived in the same way the moral violations are perceived, as a perceived threat to the social order. This would result in the adoption of conformist attitudes in an attempt to restore order. This response will only take place in the case where the perceived level of inequality is seen as unfair (i.e. a situation of high inequality).
Hypothesis 1: High levels of wealth inequality leads consumers to choose majority endorsed products due to a conformist reaction.
related to satisfaction of the social system, with higher perceptions of mobility correlating with more satisfaction (Day, Fiske, 2017). As previously mentioned, Americans generally overestimate the upward economic mobility and underestimate the downward economic mobility, however there is also some evidence of Americans erroneously concluding that mobility has declined in the past decades (Chambers et al., 2015). The opposing results found by Daviday and Gilovich (2015) and Chambers et al. (2015) suggest for some this may drive feelings of unfairness while for others it does not. I choose therefore not to focus on low perceived mobility. Blanchar and Eidelman (2013) using evidence on the Indian caste system find that longevity of the system increases the legitimacy of inequality and system justification. There are no indications to believe the American social system is unstable, although inequality has been rising rapidly in the past decades it is not a new phenomenon. Perceptions of unfair levels of inequality could be driven by the illegitimacy of inequality. Legitimacy in the case of wealth inequality is the belief that the current social arrangement, wealth distribution, is appropriate and can be justified. This means people believe the distribution of wealth came about through differences in personal ability and choice.
The system justification ideology provides an explanation as to why highly unequal distribution of wealth might not be perceived as illegitimate (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004; Jost, & Hunyady, 2002). System justification pertains to the psychological process where people rationalize prevailing social arrangements making them perceive the status quo as legitimate, just, fair, and perhaps even inevitable (Jost & Banjani, 1994; Jost & Hunyady, 2003). The belief in this system would therefore not result in feelings of illegitimacy for high levels of wealth inequality.
Jost and Banjani (1994) find that the system justification ideology is also present in relatively disadvantaged groups, leading to situation where its members take on negative views which may eventually hurt own group. One reason they provide for these views that go against apparent self-interest is that it provides hedonic benefits, such as peace of mind.
helps people rationalize the unequal distribution of social roles (Hoffman & Hurst, 1990) and they have also been found to help the poor to tolerate inequality (Lane, 1959).
System justification is not solely the response of the need for personal control or the desire for justice to be served. According to the system justification theory the psychological motive for justifying the status quo is based in dispositional antecedents and situational antecedents. System justification causes cognitive process of rationalization to be triggered when the status quo is threatened by unjust situations. One example of such a threat to the system could be economic inequality (Furnham & Gunter, 1984).
Jost & Kay (2003) created a scale to rate the degree of economic system justification in participants. This measure was created specifically to measure ‘perceptions of the fairness, legitimacy, and justifiability of the prevailing social system’. Higher scores on this scale correspond to a higher degree of adherence to the system justification ideology. Those who score high on the system justification scale will thus be likely rationalize a high level of inequality, resulting in no reaction to the majority endorsed product. The low scores on the scale would proxy for feelings of unfairness since no process of rationalization takes place in these people. In these people a conformist reaction should take place, like the one observed by Dong & Zong (2017).
Hypothesis 2: The conformist reaction due to high levels of perceived wealth inequality is moderated by its perceived legitimacy. Only when people do not adhere to system justification will they perceive a high level of inequality as illegitimate.
Methodology & Conceptual model
Figure 1. The effect of wealth inequality on consumer choice for majority - endorsed products
System Justification
Methodology. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that wealth inequality influences consumer product choice between majority and minority endorsed products. The effect on consumer choice is driven by a conformist response when the level of wealth inequality is seen as illegitimate. Views of legitimacy will thus be a moderating variable in the relationship between inequality and consumer product choice. As previously mentioned, people prefer some level of inequality over a perfectly equal society. I therefore suspect that in the low inequality condition there are no views of illegitimacy. Therefore, no conformist response will take place in this condition. In the high inequality condition, Low scores on the System justification scale will be used as a proxy for views of illegitimacy of inequality and high scores will be used as a proxy for views of legitimacy of inequality. I use the System justification scale because views of illegitimacy cannot be measured directly, however when people share the system justification ideology they approve of the existing economic conditions.
Participants and Design. Data will be collected through a survey and participants will be chosen out of a sample recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The survey was filled out by 250 participants, of whom 13 failed to complete the final step of the survey, leaving 237 for further analysis. The group of participants is relatively accurate representation of the American population.2 The experiment follows a two-by-two (low vs
high inequality & minority vs majority endorsed products) between subjects factorial design. Endorsement will be manipulated by varying the consumer rating. An index constructed from the product rating given by each participant after the manipulations will be used as the dependent variable.
Procedure. At the start of the survey participants will be shown a cover story. After reading the cover story and agreeing to take part in the survey, participants have to fill out some questions on demographics. Next the participants are randomly assigned to either the low inequality or the high inequality condition. To manipulate inequality the method designed by Côté et al. will be used, this method consists of two pie charts3 reflecting the
level of inequality. Participants will randomly be shown one of the pie charts, afterwards a series of questions will be asked to determine their understanding of the chart presented to
them. Consequently only participants that score significantly better than chance on these questions will be picked for further analysis (at least two out of three questions correct). For the high inequality condition 18 people got at least one of the questions wrong, 4 out of those 18 participants were not picked for further analysis. The same selection was carried out for the low inequality group, resulting in 6 respondents out of 19 who failed at least one question were not selected for further analysis. To measure the perceived legitimacy of the level of economic inequality participants are asked to fill out the questions on the (8-item) System justification scale4 after they filled out the questions related to the pie chart.
After participants have been exposed to a certain level of inequality they will be presented with a product (Artwork5). Following the design of Wang, Zhu, & Shiv (2012) there are two
conditions for product choice, a minority- endorsed product and majority-endorsed product. In both conditions participants will see the same artwork and description by the fictional artist Ronald White. What varies is the consumer endorsement in both conditions. In the minority endorsed condition participants will see an average endorsement of 20% and in the majority endorsed condition participants are presented with an average consumer endorsement of 80%. After reviewing the artwork the participants are presented with a four-item 7 point scale to measure their response difference between a majority vs a minority endorsed product (1 = not at all appealing, dislike very much, won’t work well in the living room, very unlikely to buy; 7 = very appealing, like very much, will work well in the living room, very likely to buy). Out of the remaining respondents, thirty-one did not remember the endorsement percentage correctly, these were deleted from the final sample.
To identify non-attentive participants, I used the instruction check as designed by Oppenheimer, Meyvis & Davidenko (2009). In addition participants’ recall of the information was tested, particularly on the majority vs minority variable and on the level of inequality. Data analysis
Dependent variable & Moderator. To form an evaluation index which will be used as the dependent variable, I averaged and then summed the responses to the four evaluation items of the majority and minority endorsed product. In addition an index was created for the
system justification scale which will be used as a moderator variable. Before starting the analysis item 3 and 7 on the system justification scale were recoded so that a higher score on all items resulted in a higher degree of system justification. Then all items where averaged to give an average score of system justification per participant, this variable was named SJS. Finally two dummy variables where created for both the inequality condition and the product endorsement condition, these variables were named Inequality and Endorsement. For the Inequality dummy a value of 1 corresponded to the high level of inequality condition. For the Endorsement dummy a value of 1 corresponded to the majority endorsed product condition. Additionally interaction variables were created between all the independent variables, with the main interaction variable called Inequality * Endorsement * SJS, this variable captures the combined effect of the high inequality condition in combination with the majority endorsed product and the moderating variable of the system justification ideology.
Descriptive statistics. The results of the descriptive statistics are posted in table 2 in the appendix, the final sample consists of 182 participants. The sample is equally divided between (n = 95) men and (n = 87) women (M = 1.48, SD = 0.50). The age of the participants (n=182) ranges between 21 and 69 years old (M = 34.23, SD = 9.48). The skewness of 1.20 (SE = 0.18) and kurtosis of 1.31(SE = 0.36) of age reveal that it is slightly skewed to the left, the young, and slightly peaked at the same point. Income measured by a 12-point scale (M = 6.33, SD = 3.01) is normally distributed with a skewness of 0.22 (SE = 0.18) and a kurtosis of -0.95 (SE = 0.36). Political views are skewed towards more conservative (M = 4.15, SD = 1.95). The minimum variable is 1 which corresponds to ‘extremely liberal’ and the maximum value is 7 which corresponds to ‘extremely conservative’. Figure 3 in the appendix shows a pie chart with the distribution of ethnicities in this sample. The sample is a relatively good representation of the overall American population.
Results and Discussion
economic state, for the high and low inequality condition. The one-way ANOVA reveals that there was a statistically significant difference between economic satisfaction between the two inequality conditions at the p<.05 level [F(1,177) = 52.02, p = .00]. I therefore conclude the inequality manipulation was successful.
To check whether the information about endorsement was remembered correctly respondents were asked to select the level of endorsement at the end of the endorsement block, 31 out of 215 got this question wrong, these were deleted from the sample used in my final analysis. I ran an additional one-way ANOVA on the two endorsement groups to find the difference in means for their product rating. The ANOVA revealed that there is no statistically significant difference in means between the two groups at the p<.05 level [F(1,180) = 0.28, p = .60]. I conclude from this that the endorsement manipulation might have been interpreted unsuccessfully.
Table 6. Regression results
The impact of inequality on product choice with the moderating variable of the system justification ideology
Dependent variable: Product Liking Inequality -0.519 (1.284) Endorsement -1,555 (1.262) Inequality * Endorsement 1.627 (0.525) SJS -0.502 (0.201)** Inequality * SJS 0. 059 (0.257) Endorsement * SJS 0. 316 (0.256) Inequality * Endorsement * SJS -0.239 (0.354) Constant 6.576 (0.966)*** Observations 182 Note: *p<0.1; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01
modest effect, demonstrated by the low value for R². After examining the individual predictors further I conclude that Inequality (t = 1.28, p = .69) and Endorsement (t = 0.26, p = .22) are not statistically significant, while SJS (t = 0.20, p = .01) is statistically significant. Additionally all three variables have a negative sign for their respective coefficients. For the interaction variables Inequality * SJS (t = 0.26, p = .82), Endorsement * SJS (t = 0.26, p = .78) and the main variables of interest Inequality * Endorsement (t = -1.63, p = .22) and Inequality * Endorsement * SJS (t = 0.35, p = .50) none enter statistically significant in my model. Of the interaction variables only Inequality * Endorsement * SJS has a negative sign for its coefficient.
As mentioned before the only significant effect found is that of the system justification ideology index, this variable is significant at the 5% level. All other variables in the analysis enter statistically insignificant. The two variables of most interest were Inequality * Endorsement and Inequality * Endorsement * SJS interaction variables, corresponding to hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2 respectively. The regression indicated 0.24% of variance (R² = .0024, F(1,171) = 0.46, p = 0.50) was explained by the addition of this interaction variable. This is only a very modest increase and is not statistically significant, it can therefore not be used to explain hypothesis 2. Therefore I am unable to reject my null hypothesis that high inequality leads to increased product liking for majority endorsed products when people do not adhere to the system justification ideology. I observe no conformist reaction in the data when people are confronted with high inequality.
This result was not anticipated and to my knowledge this has not been researched or theorized in previously published literature. Since none of the other variables enter significantly in my analysis, the statistical significance of the system justification scale might be the result of a poorly estimated model. Therefore it is not necessarily the system justification ideology that drives product liking but some other related factor unknown to me.
Most signs of the coefficients of the independent variables are as expected, I will discuss the signs that are of most importance to this research. Firstly, the sign of the Endorsement variable is not as expected, the negative sign points to a lower product liking in the majority endorsed condition. However, the result is not statistically significant. Secondly, the sign of the Inequality * Endorsement variable is as expected with high inequality coupled with the majority endorsed product having a positive effect on consumer product rating. Finally, the sign for the main interaction variable Inequality * Endorsement * SJS is as expected, higher values on the system justification index combined with high inequality and a majority endorsed product result in decreased product liking. Alternatively, lower values on the system justification index (i.e. higher propensity to view high inequality as illegitimate) results in increased product liking. As mentioned before this result is also not statistically significant and the coefficient is relatively small.
One limitation of my research is the small sample size of 182 participants. The incorrect answers to the attention checks resulted in the elimination of 55 participants and reduced the final sample below the required 50 participants per group in the 2x2 factorial design. The statistically non-significant results could thus be a consequence of the limited statistical power due to the small sample size.
The inability to reject the null hypothesis makes me unable to draw conclusions from my data. I cannot with any certainty say that inequality has no effect on consumer choice. However, the evidence does not rule in favour of inequality having an effect. Further research with an expanded pool of participants to increase statistical power has to be conducted to make any meaningful inferences. Additionally, extra attention has to be paid to the type of product used in the endorsement part, choosing a product that cannot be seen as symbolic of identity to ensure this does not affect result.
Conclusion
Inequality is rising to unprecedented levels in most of the developed world, albeit in different degrees. Especially noteworthy is the rise in the level of wealth inequality in the United States, the stark differences between the rich and poor in this country warranted a closer look of the effects of inequality on a previously un-researched topic, namely its effect on consumer product choice.
I proposed that consumers would display a conformist reaction after being confronted with a high level of inequality. This reaction would demonstrate itself in an increased product liking for the majority endorsed product group. In addition I theorized that this relation would be moderated by a sense of unfairness of the perceived level of inequality. The conformist reaction would only be present in the situation were inequality was viewed as unfair. This fairness was captured in the system justification ideology. Those adhering to this ideology would perceive any level of inequality as fair and would thus not display a conformist reaction.
inequality dummy and the product endorsement dummy (hypothesis 1) and the inequality dummy variable, the system justification index variable and the product endorsement dummy variable (hypothesis 2). Both variables turned out to be not statistically significant, the null hypotheses are therefore not rejected. Inequality had no discernible effect on the dependent variable of consumer product rating for this sample. The non-statistically significant result could be caused by an ineffective endorsement manipulation, after investigating the data I found no statistically significant difference between product ratings of the two groups. This could be due to the small sample resulting in not enough statistical power to discern a significant difference between the two groups. Additionally, it could have been caused by the endorsement manipulation not being interpreted correctly. Additional research will have to pay closer attention to these two aspects. A larger sample size could definitively rule out if high levels of wealth inequality affect consumer product choice. References
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Appendix
Figure 2.a High inequality pie chart – Source: Côté et al.
Figure 3. demographics pie chart.
Q1 In general, you find society to be fair.
Q2 In general, the American political system operates as it should Q3 American society needs to be radically restructured (reversed) Q4 The United States is the best country in the world to live in Q5 Most policies serve the greater good
Q6 Everyone has a fair shot at wealth and happiness Q7 Our society is getting worse every year (reversed)
Q8 Society is set up so that people usually get what they deserve
Note. The categories’ labels are as follows. 1: I completely disagree. 2: I strongly disagree. 3: I moderately disagree. 4: I do not disagree, nor agree. 5: I moderately agree. 6: I strongly agree. 7: I completely agree.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics
Caucasian 70% African american 6% American Indian or Alaska native 4% Asian 10% Hispanic latino or spanish 9% Other 1%
Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
What is your age? 182 21 69 34,23 9,483
What is your sex? - Selected Choice 182 1 2 1,48 0,501
What is the highest level of school you have completed or the highest degree you have received?
182 1 8 4,68 1,358
Information about income is very important to understand. Would you please give your best guess? Please indicate the answer that includes your entire household income in (previous year) before taxes.
182 1 12 6,33 3,007
Which statement best describes your current employment status? - Selected Choice
182 1 7 1,45 1,187
Here is a 7-point scale on which the political views that people might hold are arranged from extremely liberal (left) to extremely conservative (right). Where would you place yourself on this scale? - 1
182 1,00 7,00 4,1484 1,94538
