Company Worth Keeping: Personal Control and Preferences for Brand Leaders

Abstract

Brand leaders possess tremendous agency, with the ability to shape a sweeping variety of outcomes. Does this fact confer psychological value to consumers? We posit that external conditions that undermine feelings of personal control cause consumers to affiliate more with brand leaders. This occurs because affiliating with such high-agency brands gives consumers a sense of personal agency and thereby restores feelings of control. An initial study using archival data from nearly 18,000 consumers reporting on over 1,200 brands documents real-world effects that are consistent with these propositions. Four follow-up experiments demonstrate the effect of low control on brand leader (vs. nonleader) purchase intentions using direct manipulations in controlled settings, capture the underlying process, and rule out alternative explanations. This research thus reveals that the psychology of personal control underlies a process that benefits brand leaders.

In Times of Trouble: A Framework for Understanding Consumers’ Responses to Threats

“…Threats, disruption, and ontological uncertainty likewise impact consumers’ cognitions. These include loss of control ( Beck, Rahinel, and Bleier 2020 ; Van Bergen and Laran 2016 ); self-regulation ( Van Bergen and Laran 2016 ); helplessness ( Chaxel 2016 ); loneliness ( Su, Wan, and Jiang 2019 ); need for connection ( Rindfleisch, Burroughs, and Wong 2009 ); and mortality salience ( Ferraro, Shiv, and Bettman 2005 ). For instance, mortality salience, that is, the accessibility of thoughts about death, may lead to various outcomes relevant to consumers, including increased indulgence ( Ferraro et al.…”

“… Marcoux (2017) uncovers how New Yorkers used souvenirs both to remember and forget the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001. Beck et al. (2020) suggest that consumers experiencing low personal control are more likely to frequent leading brands as a way of reasserting agency.…”

Expatriate Consumers’ Adaptations and Food Brand Choices: A Compensatory Control Perspective

“…Consequently, some expatriates react by employing strong adaptation efforts to fit within the new environment, whereas others feel less inclined to do so (Haslberger, Brewster, and Hippler 2013; HSBC 2019; InterNations 2019; Ward and Kennedy 1993). As such, expatriate consumers’ adaptation efforts can be framed as a mechanism of personal agency that shapes their coping behavior in the context of food brand choices (Beck, Rahinel, and Bleier 2020).…”

Identity interplay: The importance and challenges of consumer research on multiple identities

“…Similar terminology has been used in prior research to describe undesirable, conflicting, or normatively inconsistent outgroups (e.g., White & Dahl, 2006), which we refer to as "dissociative outgroups.". 2 The notion of power (i.e., social control) has been conceptualized as distinct from status (i.e., social value), where both may be self-reinforcing of social hierarchy (Beck et al, 2020;Magee & Galinsky, 2008). This relationship, depicted in Figure 1f, bears further exploration in future research.…”