From Guilt to Wallet [Thesis]

Study of Guilt in Consumer Behaviour

Parody of an ad for a "Conscibon" drink offering to relieve consumer guilt

The guilty party is the one who benefits from the crime
Seneca, Philosopher (- 65)

As an expert in the manipulation of public opinion and propaganda, Edward Bernays is recognized by some as the father of marketing. Inventor of the profession of public relations consultant, this nephew of Sigmund Freud turned the tide of the commercial customs of his day: no longer must a salesman beg his customer to buy the product; the customer must beg his salesman to buy the product. The customer is no longer a buyer but a consumer; this is the birth of consumerism.

Today, marketing brings together a set of actions aimed at knowing, anticipating, and stimulating consumer needs for a good or service. Numerous strategies have been developed to create a need, previously non-existent, among consumers. These strategies are based on simple levers. By analyzing an advertisement, it is possible to identify certain conscious or unconscious levers such as fears or desires to which a dominant ideal of life or happiness is often added in the background.

By quickly putting our minds in tension, these levers create a state of discomfort in us that pushes us to consume to be relieved. The icing on the cake is that our brain activates the reward center and gives us a feeling of well-being when we free ourselves from these tensions.

One of the most uncomfortable feelings is guilt. Guilt is the well-founded or unfounded feeling of having done something wrong. This feeling can be induced by making an individual aware of or thinking that he or she has or will commit a fault by stepping outside the prevailing social norm. It is then interesting to ask how guilt affects consumer buying behavior.

Would You Be Willing to Pay More to be Free of Guilt?

This is what Bénédicte de Peyrelongue sets out to study in her thesis entitled "The role of perceived guilt in willingness to pay: application to the child and organic food purchases."

Why Jump into the Lion's Den?

Guilt is one of the things all humans share. Bénédicte de Peyrelongue's study allows us to better understand all the factors as well as the invisible mechanics of this obscure evil sometimes hiding deep within us.

It is in itself quite funny to imagine studying guilt in consumers. How do you measure guilt in an individual? The author explains that it is tricky to address this topic directly with the individual in question because of psychological barriers. It is indeed unlikely, as she presents to us, that an individual will say: "I consume such and such a product in quantity because I feel guilty when I feel that I am not acting like everyone else".

This thesis allows us to become aware of certain marketing strategies that induce buying impulses to protect ourselves from them and regain a little control over our lives.

To the Best of One's Knowledge

"Guilt: here is a theme that has been explored many times and that still remains central not only in psychoanalysis, but also in our everyday lives... one cannot even count the number of articles that deal with this feeling in women's or psychology magazines. And you only have to walk through any bookstore to see that there is a plethora of literary publications in this field, whether in psychology, medicine, law, history, philosophy, sociology, or simply literature... even cinema and television often take up this theme!

This is the observation from which we started to conduct this research, with the aim of better understanding the role of guilt in consumer behavior. For this feeling has been little studied in French marketing research; this is surprising, and it therefore seemed appropriate to us to take a particular interest in it. Indeed, it appears that sales professionals make massive use of this feeling: but are their methods effective and are they used wisely? Does the stimulation of guilt induce a particular behavior on the part of the consumer?

This introduction will present the framework of our research, as well as the general problematic that guided it. We will return to the two chosen fields of application as well as the objectives and structure of our work."

Having a Clear Conscience

Behind a set of curves and figures, Bénédicte de Peyrelongue highlights several results relating to guilt and the effects of certain personality traits on it.

The author thus shows that the consumer's feeling of guilt increases if the prevailing social norms are not respected in terms of responsibility towards others. This feeling of guilt may be based on the individual's feeling about himself or on a presumed social judgment of being a bad parent to his child. When faced with this dissonance between one's behavior and the norm, the subject's reaction varies and may range from discomfort, a conformist need to align one's behavior with others, or, conversely, pride in doing things differently.

In her exploratory study, the author shows that felt guilt may in some cases promote willingness to pay if the product or service offered is related to the object of that guilt. Nevertheless, her quantitative study seems to show that guilt-inducing stimuli tend to have the opposite effect of the consumer's felt guilt and reduce their tendency to consume.

Crossing the Rubicon

Bénédicte de Peyrelongue concludes her thesis by reminding us that her results are in line with the current postmodern trend in which social norms are fading away in favor of the broader emancipation of individuals. Guilt is indeed an actor in our purchasing behavior. The author suggests that these results could be different if an appropriate stimulus were used. This work invites us to become more discerning of marketing tricks to maintain control over our consumption and life choices.

What about you? Are you looking for forgiveness in consumption?

Good reading!

The thesis was presented and defended on September 30, 2011. Work carried out at the Burgundy Marketing Research Centre of the Economics and Management Laboratory (UMR CRNS 5118) within l’école doctorale Langages Idées Sociétés Institutions Territoires(LISIT): ED 491 (University of Burgundy) (Dijon).

Sources

Thesis

Bénédicte de Peyrelongue. Le rôle de la culpabilité ressentie dans le consentement à payer : application aux achats pour l’enfant et à l’achat de produits alimentaires bio. Gestion et management. Université de Bourgogne, 2011. Français. ⟨NNT: 2011DIJOE014⟩. ⟨tel-00737878⟩