Looking Cheap

As those of you who have read some version of my statement of purpose know, one research area of great interest to me is social cognition (how people process social information, think about other people, etc.) in the context of consumer psychology. This is a broad field that could look at things like:

* Stereotypes about people who buy certain things or shop at certain stores. Take a moment to consider "Whole Foods shopper" and "Wal-Mart shopper" - for most of us, images of these two categories of people come readily to mind, even if we also understand that individual people in these groups will not match up with the stereotype very well. Humans rely a great deal on these kind of simplifying generalizations in dealing with the social world.

* The influence of self-identities on consumer behavior. For a trivial example, imagine that I am in the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. Depending on what aspect of my identity is ascendant at the time, I may make a different choice. If I'm aware of myself as a "healthy eater," I will be more likely to choose something natural, with a lot of vegetables, good fats, etc. If I'm aware of myself as a "dieter," I may pick up something lower in fat and calories, but that has more chemical additives and less nutritional value. If I'm aware of myself as "college student on Operation Cheap Ass," I might gravitate toward the least expensive alternatives.

* The use of consumer goods in bolstering impression management efforts. The objects in our lives serve a lot of purposes, and communicating something about ourselves to others, in order to make a favorable impression on people whose opinions we care about, is a big one.

A paper in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research ties together several things close to my heart - grocery shopping, impression management, and saving money.

They start with the psychological concept of "stigma by associaton" (SBA) - when a negative trait a person has or is believed to have (a stigma) is also attributed to someone associated with (or similar to) that individual. In this case, they are examining the stigma of "cheapness" that comes with using coupons, especially those of low value. Other research has demonstrated that people believe that using low value coupons is something cheap people do (and is thus stigmatized), while using higher value coupons is an action of a "smart" shopper and does not produce the same negative perception.

In a series of experiments and field studies, they test whether other people will view another, "normal" shopper as cheap if a "coupon-using" shopper uses low or high value coupons in a variety of situations.

They found:

* A bystander will view a "normal" shopper following a "coupon-using" shopper in the grocery store line as more cheap when the coupon-user uses a low value (50 c) coupon than a high value ($2) coupon or no coupon. Even though the two shoppers had no actual relationship, the proximity of the normal to the "low value coupon-using" shopper made the former shopper look cheap too.

* However, when the normal shopper is in a different line from the coupon-user, the perception of cheapness does not rub off on the normal shopper regardless of coupon value. (This appears to be more about the different line than mere physical distance based on further tests.)

* When the normal shopper is very physically attractive and the coupon-user is of average appearance, some interesting stuff happens. Not only is there no SBA for the "normal/attractive" shopper regardless of coupon value or proximity to the coupon-user (he is protected by his dissimilarity to the coupon user and the fact that he has a socially desirable trait), the coupon-user himself looks less cheap. Something of the social desirability of the attractiveness of the normal shopper appears to be transferred back to the coupon-user, protecting him against a negative evaluation in the form of perceived cheapness.

* When a second person accompanies a coupon-user in the store, the second person himself feels a sense of cheapness by association. When the second person is a stranger to the coupon-user, the felt SBA is fairly low and does not depend on the coupon value, but when he is the coupon-user's friend, the felt SBA is higher, especially when a low value coupon is used.

I found the "contrast effect" produced by the highly attractive normal shopper and the typical-looking coupon-user interesting, but it seems to me that they were testing two things at once. From their experiment, it's hard to separate out how much of the effect is caused by the normal shopper being dissimilar to the coupon-user, and thus less likely to be affected by SBA, and how much is due to his having a positive trait that is known to produce a halo effect (makes the person seem good on other dimensions that have nothing to do with their attractiveness). I wonder what would happen if the normal shopper was especially ugly instead of especially good-looking, but equally dissimilar in appearance? Would this make the coupon-user appear even cheaper?

Source: Argo, J.J., & Main, K.J. (2008). Stigma by association in coupon redemption: looking cheap because of others, Journal of Consumer Research, 35, 559-572.