Sometimes it’s not so straightforward. Researchers at O.P Jindal Global University, University of Southampton, and Indian Institute of Management say that when a shopper is embarrassed, their interest in environment-friendly and sustainable products grows.
The researchers’ explanation for the effect is that embarrassment leads us to want to re-establish our social standing in the opinions of others. Showing a commitment to the welfare of the environment can serve as an effort to do that. This does mean that the embarrassment motivating the purchase of prosocial products depends on the preference being expressed publicly.
The wrinkle here is in you discerning that your shopper is indeed embarrassed. In the research studies, a state of embarrassment was activated by asking study participants to write about an incident from their past life in which they felt very embarrassed. The consumption preferences of these participants were compared with those from a group who had been asked instead to write about how they spend a typical day.
For some of the research, the preferences measured were between two T-shirts, one described as manufactured with no harm to soil or water and the other described as manufactured to enhance softness and comfort for users.
In your selling, you could encounter shoppers who start talking about being embarrassed. This is a signal for you to describe in front of others the prosocial benefits of items you offer the shoppers. It’s more likely the reason to suspect embarrassment will appear in another way. It might be in the type of product chosen. Buying foot fungus medication or incontinence pads probably carries some degree of embarrassment. Embarrassment also arises when a shopper uses discount coupons or witnesses another shopper committing a significant faux pas.
A promising confirmation of embarrassment is the shopper’s body language. In a study where University of Texas-Austin students were assigned to purchase a present for someone who wanted an item carrying the logo of UT archrival Texas A&M, the shoppers fidgeted, chewed on their lips, and averted their eyes. They crossed their arms, as if to distance themselves from what they were doing.
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Bare Asinine Oversights That Embarrass
Image at top of post based on photo by Julia Taubitz from Unsplash