Participants in a study at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, Florida State University, Southern Utah University, University of British Columbia, and University of Minnesota were placed in pairs. Then one of the pair would resign from the team. In some cases, the remaining partner was led to believe this happened because the departing teammate disliked their partner. In these cases, the remaining partner became more likely to buy relatively useless products and spend premium amounts on foods they themselves disliked, but thought their partner would like.
Here the social rejection was by an individual, not an entire group. Now, more recent research at University of Houston-Clear Lake and University of Texas-San Antonio also finds that when a group ignores a member, the member becomes motivated to engage in conspicuous consumption. Again, this could take the form of purchasing items they themselves find unattractive except for impressing others.
But these researchers also say that social rejection by a group can motivate consumers to contribute. One set of study participants were made to feel actively excluded. For some, this was accomplished by asking the people to recall past experiences in which they’d been isolated by former colleagues. For the rest of these participants, the experimental manipulation consisted of the person being antagonized during online exchanges.
The result was that these study participants became more interested in donating money to a worthy cause and volunteering their time to help out those who were less advantaged.
The researchers explain this by distinguishing two types of social rejection—being ignored and being actively excluded. Consumers who are actively excluded are motivated to engage in prosocial actions, such as making contributions, because our psyches are designed to find charitable people to be interpersonally attractive. Those who are rejected yearn to get back in a group’s good graces.
Because at retail you may no idea whether a rejected shopper has been actively excluded or only ignored, you can increase the potential for a sale by giving all shoppers an opportunity to make a charitable contribution as part of the sale.
This can be especially useful with senior citizen shoppers, who are at enhanced risk of feeling rejected by younger family members. Researchers find that altruism is especially important to elderly consumers. Seniors like to give their business to retailers who are compassionate, and they like to view themselves as generous.
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Give Customers Assurance They Belong
Help Older Customers to Help Others
Emphasize Emotions with Older Consumers
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