Deception in
marketing tactics
Master thesis, Msc Marketing Management
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
2
RAISE YOUR ETHICAL BAR
THE
ROLE
OF
DECEPTIVE
ADVERTISING
ON
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
3 In recent years, complaints about deceptive marketing tactics increased. In 2010 the Stichting Reclame Code (SRC) received 1.158 complaints of which 429 were booked as deceptive tactics (SRC, 2011). In 2010, compared to 2009, the Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) experienced a 9.7% increase in complaints of which the majority is about deception (ASC, 2011). In other words, deception is occurring in everyday life and consumers do not like it. Surprisingly, little research has investigated the use of deception in marketing tactics apart from research which showed that deception in advertising is leading to decreased trustworthiness and defensive behavior (Darke & Ritchie, 2007; Olekalns & Smith, 2009). This research will attempt to provide better insight in the role of deception in advertising on consumer behavior.
What is deception and what do we know about it?
Several studies paid attention to defining deception (e.g. Carson, Wokutch, & Cox Jr., 1985; DePaulo, Kirkendol, Kashy, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996; Aquino, 1998; Gneezy, 2005). For example, Gneezy (2005, p. 386) defines deception as “a successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief that the communicator considers to be untrue in order to increase the communicator’s payoff at the expense of the other side”. Besides these definitions coming from scientific research, the different advertising agencies have their own definitions of deception. For instance, the Federal Trade Commision (FTC) defines deceptive advertising as "a representation, omission or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer" (FTC, 2011). This paper will use the definition as stated by the FTC for the reason that this definition is more associated with the consumer context of the current study.
4 The current study thus adds to the existing literature on deception by focusing on the role of deception in the consumer context. Before I continue it is important to note that the negotiation context and the consumer context are alike. That is because research in both fields uses labels of “buyers” and “sellers”. However research on deception in the negotiation context differs from my field of interest, as I focus on the role of deception in marketing tactics. Consumers are merely exposed to deception, and hardly have any possibility to deceive the seller themselves. This study will make an attempt to assess which factors influence the degree to which consumers perceive marketing tactics as deceptive. Before getting to my final research question and hypotheses, I will first give an overview of what is known about increasing the saliency of ethical norms by means of priming.
Priming does matter
Numerous studies have demonstrated that priming can be used to influence peoples’ perception, evaluations, motivations, and behavior (e.g. Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996; Smeesters, Warlop, Van Avermaet, Corneille, & Yzerbyt, 2003; Kay, Wheeler, Bargh, & Ross, 2004; Kellaris, Dahlstrom, & Boyle, 1996; Wang, 2007). The priming effect states that by making some issues more salient than others, a prime influences the standards by which a particular issue is judged (Wang, 2007). So when a particular subject is primed, it becomes more accessible and thus more likely to play a role in the formation of subsequent judgments (Wyer & Srull, 1989). For example, Smeesters et al. (2007) showed that priming the concept of morality enhanced cooperative behavior, and priming the concept of might enhanced the non-cooperative behavior. Therefore, I suggest that in the current study increased saliency of ethical and business norms have an influence on consumer behavior.
5 been primed. In these studies the priming effect made people think about “what is the right thing to do” (i.e. ethical) and the respondents acted upon this moral reminder in their next activity.
In addition to the influence of semantic primes on peoples’ behavior, Kay et al. (2004) demonstrated that material primes could also influence peoples’ behavior. After establishing that exposure to business-related objects increased competitive behavior and that material primes can implicitly influence social perceptions, two types of the “Ultimatum Game” experiments were conducted. In these experiments the respondents were asked to divide ten dollars between themselves and another participant, in one case they could actually see the other respondent and in the other case they did not. Results showed that in both cases the respondents which were exposed to business-related objects did not divide the money equally and kept more for themselves, than respondents who were exposed to neutral objects. These results suggest that respondents who were exposed to business-related objects acted more competitively, harsher, when dividing the money than the respondents who were exposed to neutral objects. Anton (1990) supports this idea and found that deception is more accepted as “the rules of the game” (e.g. part of doing business) in a negotiation context.
In sum, little attention has explicitly been given to the influence of priming ethical and business norms on deception in advertising on consumer behavior. However prior research showed that priming is an effective method to increase the saliency of norms, which resulted in a change in peoples’ behavior accordingly. That is, when peoples’ morality became more salient they started to act upon these higher “levels” of morality. The question remains whether this will be the case in a consumer context as well? Therefore I expect that when the consumers will be primed more in terms of ethicality they will perceive a potential deceptive advertisement different than when they will be primed with more rational cues. More specifically, when ethical saliency is high people will set their so-called ‘ethical’ bar higher compared to when saliency of business norms is high.
The consequences of deception
Past research on deception in marketing showed that deception has an influence on a person’s consumer related behavior or attitude, e.g. trust or buying intentions. However, this study suggests that deception can also influence unrelated (i.e., not related to consumer context) behavior. More specifically, I argue that deception can influence subsequent moral behavior, like cheating, unrelated to the consumer context.
6 defensive behavior towards the advertiser is likely to result in negative word-of-mouth and buying intentions.
On the other hand it can also be an unrelated, behavioral reaction. For example, Gino et al. (2009) demonstrated that individuals’ unethicality depends on the social norms implied by the dishonesty of others and on the saliency of ethicality at the moment one is considering a particular behavior. In two experiments the participants were asked to complete 20 matrices in five minutes, for each correctly solved matrix they could earn 50 cents. However the time was not sufficient for anyone to solve all matrices. For the first experiment, an actor was hired to, obviously, cheat by finishing the matrix task within 60 seconds and leave the room with the maximum reward. In line with what they expected, participants’ level of unethical behavior increased when the actor was an in-group member, but decreased when the actor was an out-group member. Implying that when ‘everybody’ is behaving in a particular manner, you are likely to copy that behavior, but only when you can identify yourself with those persons. If you cannot identify yourself with the persons behaving in a particular manner, you are less likely to copy that behavior and you may want to distance yourself from this so-called ‘bad apple’ (Gino et al., 2009). During the second experiment, the actor was ordered to ask a question about cheating, “So, is it OK to cheat?”, which simply strengthened the saliency of this possibility. This manipulation decreased the level of cheating among the participants. This result is in line with previous findings by Mazar et al. (2008) showing that study participants cheat when they get the opportunity to do so, but not to a large degree.
7 Consequently, when consumers set their so-called ‘ethical’ bar high, compared to consumers primed with rational cues, they are more likely to maintain these high ethical standards in a non-consumer related context. On the contrary, when non-consumers set their so-called ‘ethical’ bar low, compared to consumers primed more in terms of ethicality, they are more likely to maintain these lower ethical standards and thus behave accordingly in a non-consumer context. Especially in the latter case I expect that the behavior of the consumers with relatively low ethical standards is contagious, because it will assure their previous behavioral reaction of ‘being part of the game’ when doing business. While in the case where consumers set their so-called ‘ethical’ bar high, they will act upon these high standards as well and when they tend to slip away they will correct themselves immediately to maintain the high ethical standards.
Perspective
In the consumer context word of mouth is a frequent and important way of communicating (Berger & Schwartz, 2011). Consumers talk about new products, complain about bad experiences, and share information about advertisements they encountered. More important, consumers not only share their own experiences but that of others as well. More specifically, consumers are influenced by the experiences of others even when they do not know those persons. Therefore, in contrast to a more egoistic perspective (Schorn & Mauhart, 2009), this study will take into account the effect of perspective taking (self versus other). In other words, when you look at a potentially deceptive situation from your own perspective you will experience the deception to a much greater extent than when you look at it from another persons’ perspective. Consequently, the reaction will be much stronger, negatively, when the implications are directly affecting you instead of an unknown other. Thus whether a potential deceptive advertisement is perceived from a self perspective or another person’s perspective will moderate the effect of the saliency (ethical versus business) on unrelated consumer behavior.
Method
Sample
One hundred eighteen students (51 male, 67 female) from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen participated in the study for a maximum payment of 7 euro. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the conditions of the 2 (prime: ethical vs. business) x 2 (perspective: self first vs. other first) between-participants design. The average age of the between-participants was 21.39 years (SD = 2.56).
Procedure
8 separate cubicles with a computer. Participants were told that the experiment consisted of two separate studies, each lasting 30 minutes. During the first part they participated in a study not related to this research. In the second half of the experiment the participants were told that they would participate in a number of unrelated experiments. After they answered a set of general questions (e.g. age, gender) they were requested to perform a sequence of three tasks: 1) a grammar test (i.e. scrambled sentence task); 2) a shopping study (i.e. a scenario study); and 3) a negotiation study (i.e. an ultimatum bargaining game). After participants completed all these tasks, they were requested to describe their suspicions about the experimental procedures. None of the participants indicated any suspicion of a relationship between the grammar test, shopping study, and negotiation study. Also, none of the participants indicated any suspicion about their opponent in the negotiation study (i.e., that there was no actual opponent). Finally, they were debriefed and paid 7 euro.
The grammar test
The first task was a grammar test in the form of a scrambled sentence test designed to increase the saliency of either the construct of ethics or the more business-like state of mind. However before the participants started with the actual scrambled sentence test they were asked to answer seven general questions about emphatic concern (adapted from Davis, 1983) to measure participants’ general concern for other people. These items were: 1) When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective toward them; 2) When I see someone being treated unfairly, I sometimes don't feel very much pity for them; 3) I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me; 4) I would describe myself as a pretty soft-hearted person; 5) Sometimes I don't feel sorry for other people when they are having problems; 6) Other people's misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal; and 7) I am often touched by things that I see happen. Followed by seven general questions about perspective taking (adapted from Davis, 1983) to measure participants’ perspective-taking ability. These items were: 1) Before criticizing somebody, I try to imagine how I would feel if I were in their place; 2) If I'm sure I am right about something, I don't waste much time listening to other people's arguments; 3) I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective; 4) I believe that there are two sides to every question and try to look at them both; 5) I sometimes find it difficult to see things from the ' other guy's ' point of view; 6) I try to look at everybody's side of a disagreement before I make a decision; and 7) When I am upset at someone, I usually try to put myself in his/her shoes for a while. A 7-point Likert-type response scale ranging from 1 (does not describe me well) to 7 (describes me very well) was used for each of the items.
9 Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two prime conditions (ethical vs. business). The two versions of the scrambled sentence test were constructed as follows: one was intended to prime the construct of ethics, and the other to prime the construct of business. For both the ethic and business-like priming versions, 15 of the 30 items contained an adjective, noun, or verb semantically related to the trait in question. For the ethical priming version the critical priming stimuli were honest, helpful,
care, trust, morality (adapted from Smeesters et al., 2003), integrity, loyal (adapted from Hosmer,
1995), norms, right, correct, responsible, help, altruism, good, and ethical (e.g. “norms violated the yet were”). For the business-like priming version the critical priming stimuli were powerful (adapted from Smeesters et al., 2003), money, market, profit, win, breach, competition, rational, professional,
fired, sales, productivity, CEO, strategy, and shareholders (e.g. “is business money person big”). The
other 15 items contained neutral words like close, early, hungry, cold, carried (adopted from Levesque & Pelletier, 2003), send, normally, exercising, watches, practiced, occasionally (adopted from Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996), leisure, work, coffee, and rough (e.g. “that he shop watches sells”). The neutral priming stimuli were the same for both the ethical priming version and the business-like priming version. All sentences were randomly scrambled and put in random order.
Shopping study
To measure the perception of the potential deception among the participants a scenario study was used. This study used two scenarios describing two different potential deceptive marketing tactics. All participants received both scenarios. In order to test whether the perspective condition had an influence on the role of deception in marketing tactics on consumer behavior the scenarios used a ‘You’ perspective (self) or an ‘Tom/Susan’ perspective (other).
The first scenario, regarding a potential deceptive advertising in a perfume store, was described as follows:
Perfume store. You/Tom are visiting the perfume department of a large store. In the
store, several signs state “15% discount on all products”. However, when you/Tom arrive at the cash-deck you have to pay the full price as stated on the price tag. The salesman explains that they mean that their products are 15% cheaper than in other stores. Apparently the discount is already calculated in the price on the price tag.
The second scenario, regarding a potential deceptive advertising in an advertisement folder, was described as follows:
Advertisement folder. In an advertisement folder you/Susan read about the products
10 folder. When you arrive at the cash desk you find out that not all products from that
folder are on special offer.
After the participants read each situation they had to fill out a 21-item questionnaire, which measured to what extent the participants experienced the potentially deceptive advertisement as deceptive. Separate multi-item scales were developed to assess how the participants felt after reading the scenario. A 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very) was used for each of the items. Additionally, a separate measure was adapted to assess what the participants thought about the scenario. A 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (absolutely) was used for each of the items. Finally several measures were developed to test whether the participants believed the scenario was common practice when doing business or not. Responses were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (absolutely disagree) to 7 (absolutely agree).
Feelings. Seven items were developed to assess how the participants felt after reading the
scenario. These items were: 1) How angry do you feel; 2) How irritated are you; 3) How frustrated are you; 4) How surprised are you; 5) How disappointed are you; 6) How happy are you; and 7) How pleased do you feel. Scores on the items 1-5 were averaged into a separate scale for the negative feelings regarding the perfume store scenario (α = .92) and for the advertisement folder scenario (α = .92). The scores on the items 6 and 7 were averaged into a separate single scale for the positive feelings in the perfume store scenario (α = .90) and for the advertisement folder scenario (α = .88).
Deception. Eleven items were used to assess what the participants thought about the scenario.
Several items were adopted from existing literature. These items were: 1) How misleading is this situation; 2) How deceptive is this situation; 3) To what extent do you feel the company gave the real facts and 4) To what extent did the company tell the whole truth (adopted from Thomas, Booth-Butterfield, & Booth-Booth-Butterfield, 1995); 5) How inappropriate do you find this situation; 6) How unethical do you think this situation is; 7) How immoral do you think this situation is; 8) How fair were you treated (adopted from Oliver & Swan, 1989); 9) How justifiable do you think this situation is; 10) Generally, this behavior of a company is acceptable (adopted from Ingram et al., 2005); and 11) Do you think most people would agree that the company's action was wrong (adopted from Singhapakdi, Vitell, & Kraft, 1996). Scores on the items 3, 4, and 8-10 were averaged into a separate single scale for positive terms regarding the perfume store scenario (α = .79) and for the advertisement folder scenario (α = .87). The scores on the items 1,2,5-7, and 11 were averaged into a separate single scale for negative terms regarding the perfume store scenario (α = .73) and for the advertisement folder scenario (α = .85).
Common practice. Three items were developed to test whether the participants believed the
11 be suspicious on special offers. In the perfume store scenario only the scores of items 1 and 2 could be averaged into a separate single scale for common practice (α = .78), but for the advertisement folder scenario all three items were averaged into a single scale (α = .71).
The negotiation study
After measuring the participants’ perception of deception, participants took part in the final, allegedly, unrelated study. This was an ultimatum bargaining study (adapted from Koning, van Dijk, van Beest, & Steinel, 2010). Participants were informed that they would be paired with another participant and that each pair of participants (referred to as person A and B) had to divide 100 chips. Person A, which was always the participant, was informed about the value of his or her chips. The participants were told that their chips are worth 10 cents and that of their opponent (Person B), which did not exist, are only worth 5 cents. Then the participants were asked to send a message to their opponent about the value of their chips. Note that the participants thus had an information advantage as they are the only one that know the actual value of their own chips as well as the chips of their opponent.
My main interest was in the message participants would send to their opponent. Would they communicate the true value (10 cents) of their chips or would they deceive their opponent? After participants made an offer, they were asked seven questions about how they just handled the negotiation situation.These questions were: 1) How inappropriate was it for you to mislead Person B about the value of the chips; 2) How unjust was it for you to deceive Person B; 3) How inappropriate was it for you to take advantage of your information advantage; 4) How important was it for you to make a lot of money yourself; 5)How important was it for you to have an equal financial (i.e., in money, not chips) allocation of the chips; 6) How honest wanted you to be; 7) How justifiable would others think your behavior was. A 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very) was used for each of the items. Scores on these questions could not be averaged into a single scale (α = .39), therefore only items 1-3 were averaged into a single scale for their unrelated behavior (α = .85).
Results
Unless stated otherwise all analyses used a 2 (prime: ethical vs. business) x 2 (perspective: self vs. other) ANOVA to test the hypothesizes.
Perfume store scenario
Feelings. An ANOVA showed a marginally significant effect of the perspective on to what
12 the perspective on to what extent the participants felt positive feelings towards the situation (F(1, 114) = 3.35, p = .07). Thus when the participants read the situation from another persons’ perspective the participants felt more positive feelings regarding the situation (M = 2.44, SD = 1.39) than when the situation was described from their own perspective (M = 2.01, SD = 1.19). No other significant results were found.
Perception of deception. There were no significant effects of the prime and perspective on the
participants’ perception of deception.
Common practice. An ANOVA showed a marginally significant effect of the prime on
whether the participants thought that the situation they encountered is common practice when doing business (F(1, 114) = 3.15, p = .08). In other words, when the participants were in the business-like prime condition they agreed that the situation was less normal (M = 3.19, SD = 1.88) than the participants in the ethical prime condition (M = 3.75, SD = 1.53). No other significant results were found.
Advertisement folder scenario
Feelings. An ANOVA showed a significant effect of the perspective on to what extent the
participants had negative feelings resulting from the situation (F(1, 114) = 9.90, p < .01). In other words, when the scenario was described from their own perspective participants felt more negative feelings regarding the situation (M = 4.24, SD = 1.48) scenario was described from another persons’ perspective (M = 3.37, SD = 1.49). The same was true for the effect of the perspective on to what extent the participants had positive feelings towards the situation (F(1, 114) = 4.31, p = .04). Thus when the participants read the situation from another persons’ perspective the participants felt more positive feelings regarding the situation (M = 3.02, SD = 1.40) than when the situation was described from their own perspective (M = 2.50, SD = 1.31). No other significant results were found.
Perception of deception. An ANOVA test was performed to measure the participants’
13 worse when the scenario was described from the perspective of another person than when it was described from their own perspective. No other significant results were found.
Common practice. There are no significant effects of the prime or perspective on whether the
participants thought that the situation they encountered is common practice when doing business.
Negotiation study
In the current setting, communicating a value of 10 cents meant that the participants truthfully disclosed the value of their chips. All other values can be considered as deceitful. As a first analysis, I therefore analyzed whether participants told the truth or whether they deceived their non-existing opponent. A log linear analysis on this dichotomous measure, with the prime and perspective as predictors, indicated that the percentage of participants deceiving their opponent did not differ between the participants in the ethical prime condition (37.8%) and the participants in the business prime condition (31.5%; X²(1) = 0.00, p = .95). See Table 1.
Table 1. Percentages of participants deceiving their opponent, by prime condition.
10 cents not 10 cents
Ethical prime
Business prime
More specifically, an ANOVA on the communicated value of the chips showed no significant main effect of the prime (F(1, 110) = 0.00, p = .93). Thus there was no significant difference between the message the participants sent to their opponent when primed more in terms of ethicality (M = 7.25, SD = 6.28) compared to when they were in the business-like prime (M = 7.18, SD = 2.99). Furthermore no significant main effect was found for the perspective (F(1, 110) = 1.05, p = .31). In other words, whether the participants read the scenario from their own perspective (M = 6.74, SD = 2.60) or the perspective of another person (M = 7.71, SD = 6.55) the communicated values of their chips did not significantly differ. Finally, no significant interaction effect was found (F(1, 110) = 0.22, p = .64). See Table 2.
Table 2. Communicated value of the chips, by prime and perspective.
Self-perspective Other-perspective
Ethical prime 6.57 (2.81) 7.97 (8.51)
Business prime 6.93 (2.39) 7.44 (3.55)
14
Allocators’ Offers. After measuring deception, the number of chips participants offered to
their opponent was measured to test whether their offer was affected by their use of deception. A t-test showed that there was no significant difference between the amount of chips offered when participants deceived their opponent (M = 43.20, SD = 21.35) compared to when they had told the truth (M = 46.53, SD = 26.90; t(108) = -0.70, p = .49).
Inappropriateness of deception. An ANOVA test was performed to measure the effect of the
prime and perspective on to what extent participants’ thought their behavior during the negotiation study was inappropriate. Results showed a marginally significant interaction effect (F(1, 114) = 3.39,
p = .07). In other words, in the ethical prime condition participants thought their behavior was less
inappropriate when looking at it from another persons’ perspective (M = 3.91, SD = 1.42) than when they looked at it from their own perspective (M = 4.20, SD = 1.71). In the business prime condition participants thought their behavior was less inappropriate when looking at it from their own perspective (M = 3.39, SD = 1.67) than when they looked at it from another persons’ perspective (M = 4.20, SD = 1.66). A simple slope analysis showed that overall whether the participants were in the ethical or business prime condition and looked at it from another person’s perspective did not matter much (p = .50), but when the participants were in the ethical prime condition their behavior was significantly more inappropriate when looking at it from their own perspective compared to the other persons’ perspective (p = .05). No other significant results were found.
Discussion
The current study investigated if an increased saliency of ethical or business norms had an effect on the role of deceptive marketing tactics on consumer behavior and whether the different perspectives (self vs. other) had an influence. In addition this study investigated whether the exposure of deceptive marketing tactics would lead to unrelated behavioral reactions. In other words, whether the deceptive behavior is contagious. The results showed that the manipulation, the priming effect, used to increase the saliency of the ethical and business norms did not work. Therefore, in general, the results showed no effect of the priming effect (ethical vs. business) on the role of deception on consumer behavior. Thus whether consumers were in the ethical or business prime condition had no influence on how high or low they set their so-called ‘ethical’ bar. However the results did show an effect of the perspective on the role of deception on consumer behavior, though these results differed per scenario. Finally, results showed very limited significant results of the effect of the saliency of ethical and business norms on unrelated behavior.
15 looked at it from another persons’ perspective. Furthermore, results showed a marginally significant effect of the prime on the degree to which participants thought that the situation was common practice when doing business. However this result was not in line with what I expected. Since I expected that participants in the business prime condition would see the situation more as common practice than participants in the ethical prime condition. Though, results showed that the opposite is true. Although this finding is only marginally significant and only present in the perfume store scenario, it might be explained by a reverse prime effect. That is, when participants read the deceptive scenario, instead of believing that this is common practice when doing business, what I initially expected, they might find it so unacceptable that they show contradicting behavior and believe it is not common practice at all when doing business. For example, Gino et al. (2009) found that when the saliency of dishonesty (e.g. cheating) increased, cheating decreased. Thus when the participants were given the opportunity to cheat without having negative consequences to such behavior, they still cheated less than when the opportunity was there without increasing the saliency of cheating. In a similar vein Laran, Dalton, and Andrade (2011) found evidence that exposure to marketing stimuli that are perceived to be persuasion tactics can cause a reverse priming effect. In this case it could be that participants perceived the deceptive scenario as a persuasion tactic by the company and therefore perceived the situation as something not common when doing business. Finally, I did not find any significant results for the prime nor the perspective condition on the role of deception on consumer behavior.
The advertisement folder scenario showed much stronger significant effects of the perspective condition on the feelings the participants expressed after reading the deceptive scenario as well as on the role of deception on consumer behavior. The results showed that when participants looked at the scenario from their own perspective they tend to feel more negative emotions and less positive emotions towards the situation compared to when they looked at it from another persons’ perspective. In addition, results showed that when the participants looked at the situation form another persons’ perspective they tend to care less or believe it is less bad, than when they look at the situation from their own perspective. As a result the deception is perceived as ‘less worse/slightly better’ when it participants look at it from another persons’ perspective compared to when the look at it from their own perspective.
16 scenario was indeed more ‘on the edge’, as it was not obviously deceptive for every participant. These results indicate that the prime condition might have had some effect, though not enough to significantly influence the results.
Finally, results of the negotiation study showed a marginally significant interaction effect of the prime and perspective on the inappropriateness of deception. In other words, the effect of the saliency of ethical or business norms on whether participants believed the deception was inappropriate was influenced by the perspective. Besides this result, no other significant results were found. A possible explanation for this might be due to the non-significant priming effect. Since I expected that when participants were primed in more ethical terms they would set the so-called ‘ethical’ bar higher and therefore not deceive their opponents in the negotiation study. In contrast, when the participants were primed in more business terms they would set the so-called ‘ethical’ bar lower and therefore would be more likely to deceive their opponents in the negotiation study. In other words I expected that deceptive behavior in the consumer context (i.e. shopping study) would be contagious and lead to deceptive behavior in a different unrelated situation (i.e. negotiation study) as well. So my argumentation for participants to show contagious behavior was primarily based on the priming effect. However, the prime showed no effect and it is therefore to be expected that the negotiation study showed no significant results either.
Taken together, the results indicate that the manipulation of the saliency of ethical and business norms did not work. Therefore, my expectations about participants setting their so-called ‘ethical’ bar higher when primed more in terms of ethicality and lower when they were primed more in terms of business, are not supported. For the same reasons no support was found for the assumption that when the saliency of ethical norms is high participants are less likely to develop contagious behavior (i.e. deceive their opponent in the negotiation study) than when the saliency of business norms is high. The results suggest that no matter which norms were made salient, respondents deceived their opponents to the same extent, both in communicating the actual value for their chips as well as making an actual offer. Finally, the assumption that the perspective condition (self vs. other) would moderate the effect of the priming condition (ethical vs. business) on the role of deception on consumer behavior was not supported.
Limitations
17 priming stimuli to be more certain the manipulation will work. A second potential weakness of this study is that in order to measure unrelated consumer behavior a hypothetical game setting, lacking monetary payoffs, was used. Besides, the participants did not interact with their opponent, in fact there was no ‘real’ opponent. Therefore, it might be interesting to replicate the present study with a more real-life game setting, including actual opponents and monetary payoffs. Finally, using two different scenarios involving a different degree of deceptiveness might have had a negative influence on the results. This was especially the case for the highly deceptive scenario, which showed a ceiling effect, which indicated that the perception was too obvious no matter what norms were made salient. Future research could focus on just one degree of deceptiveness. However, future research could also look more into the difference between these two degrees of deceptiveness to see whether it has an effect on consumer behavior or not.
Conclusion
This study represents an initial step into the analysis of the consequences of deception in advertising on consumer behavior, especially focusing on unrelated behavior. Further research is needed to adjust the initial conceptual model. For example, by pretesting the priming stimuli in order to successfully manipulate the saliency of ethical and business norms. The question of whether the role of deception in advertising on consumer behavior is contagious remained unanswered. Nevertheless, this makes the question not less relevant. As a healthy social and business environment depends on the ability of individuals to spread ethical norms and values while reducing the attractiveness of unethical behavior (Gino et al., 2009). In other words, future research should not underestimate the effect of deceptive marketing tactics in a consumer context.
18
References
Anton, R.J. (1990). Drawing the Line: an Exploratory Test of Ethical Behaviour in Negotiations. The
International Journal of Conflict Management, 1(3): 265-280.
Aquino, K. (1998). The Effects of Ethical Climate and the Availability of Alternatives on the use of Deception during Negotiation. International Journal of Conflict Management, 9(3): 195-217. ASC (2011). “Annual Report 09-10: Truth in advertising matters”. Retrieved 25-10-2011, from:
http://adstandards.com/en/AboutASC/annualReports.aspx
Banas, J.T. & Parks, J.M. (2002). Lambs Among Lions? The Impact of Ethical Ideology on Negotiation Behaviors and Outcomes. International Negotiation, 7: 235-260.
Bargh, J.A., Chen, M., & Burrows, L. (1996). Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2): 230-244.
Berger, J. & Schwartz, E.M. (2011). What Drives Immediate and Ongoing Word of Mouth? Journal of
Marketing Research, 48(5): 869-880.
Carson, T.L., Wokutch, R.E., & Cox Jr., J.E. (1985). An Ethical Analysis of Deception in Advertising.
Journal of Business Ethics, 4(2): 93-104.
Darke, P.R. & Ritchie, R.J.B. (2007). The Defensive Consumer: Advertising Deception, Defensive Processing, and Distrust. Journal of Marketing Research, 44(1): 114-127.
Davis, M.H. (1983). Measuring Individual Differences in Empathy: Evidence for a Multidimensional Approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1): 113-126.
DePaulo, B.M., Kirkendol, S.E., Kashy, D.A., Wyer, M.M., & Epstein, J.A. (1996). Lying in everyday Life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 70(5): 979-995.
FTC (2011). FTC policy statement on deception. Retrieved 25-11-2011, from: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/policystmt/ad-decept.htm
Gino, F., Ayal, S., & Ariely, D. (2009). Contagion and Differentiation in Unethical Behavior: The Effect of One Bad Apple on the Barrel. Psychological Science, 20(3): 393-398.
19 Hosmer, L.T. (1995). The Connecting Link between Organizational Theory and Philosophical Ethics.
The Academy of Management Review, 20(2 ): 379-403.
Ingram, R., Skinner, S., & Taylor, V. (2005). Consumers' Evaluation of Unethical Marketing Behaviors: The Role of Customer Commitment. Journal of Business Ethics, 62(3): 237-252. Jehn, K. & Scott, E. (2008). Perceptions of Deception: Making Sense of Responses to Employee
Deceit. Journal of Business Ethics, 80: 327-347.
Kay, A., Wheeler, S., Bargh, J., & Ross, L. (2004). Material priming: The influence of mundane physical objects on situational construal and competitive behavioral choice. Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 95: 83-96.
Kellaris, J.J., Dahlstrom, R.F., & Boyle, B.A. (1996). Contextual Bias in Ethical Judgment of Marketing Practices. Psychology & Marketing, 13(7): 677-694.
Koning, L., Steinel, W., van Beest, I., & van Dijk, E. (2011). Power and deception in ultimatum bargaining. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115: 35-42.
Koning, L., van Dijk, E., van Beest, I., & Steinel, W. (2010). An Instrumental Account of Deception and Reactions to Deceit in Bargaining. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(1): 57-73.
Laran, J., Dalton, A.N., & Andrade, E.B. (2011). The Curious Case of Behavioral Backlash: Why Brands Produce Priming Effects and Slogans Produce Reverse Priming Effects. Journal of
Consumer Research, 37: 999-1014.
Levesque, C. & Pelletier, L.G. (2003). On the Investigation of Primed and Chronic Autonomous and Heteronomous Motivational Orientations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(12): 1570-1584.
Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, XLV: 633-644.
Olekalns, M. & Smith, P.L. (2009). Mutually Dependent: Power, Trust, Affect and the Use of Deception in Negotiation. Journal of Business Ethics, 85: 347-365.
Oliver, R.L. & Swan, J.E. (1989). Consumer Perceptions of Interpersonal Equity and Satisfaction in Transactions: A Field Survey Approach. Journal of Marketing, 53: 21-35.
20 Schorn, R. & Maurhart, B. (2009). Influencing Willingness to Pay by Supraliminally Priming the
Concept of Honesty. Advances in Consumer Research, 36: 463-466.
Singhapakdi, A., Vittel, S.J., & Kraft, K.L. (1996). Moral Intensity and Ethical Decision-Making of Marketing Professionals. Journal of Business Research, 36: 245-255.
Smeesters, D., Warlop, L., Van Avermaet, E., Corneille, O., & Yzerbyt, V. (2003). Do Not Prime Hawks With Doves: The Interplay of Construct Activation and Consistency of Social Value Orientation on Cooperative Behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(5): 972–987.
SRC (2011). “Jaarverslag 2010: Voor verantwoorde reclame”. Retrieved 25-10-2011, from: http://www.reclamecode.nl/adverteerder/default.asp?paginaID=23&hID=1
Srull, T.K., & Wyer, R.S. (1979). The Role of Category Accessibility in the Interpretation of Information About Persons: Some Determinants and Implications. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 37(10): 1660-1672.
Thomas, C.E., Booth-Butterfield, M., & Booth-Butterfield, S. (1995). Perceptions of Deception, Divorce Disclosures, and Communication Satisfaction with Parents. Western Journal of
Communication, 59: 228-245.
Wang, A. (2007). Priming, Framing, and Position on Corporate Social Responsibility. Journal of
Public Relations Research, 19(2): 123–145.
