The universality of warmth and competence: A response to brands as intentional agents

Abstract

Considerable effort has been devoted towards the understanding of the ways in which people interact with brands. However, little attention has been paid to the personal differences that may impact these interactions. The framework for brands as intentional agents by Kervyn, Fiske, and Malone (this issue) is the groundbreaking application of almost three decades of research on warmth and competence as predictors of interpersonal stereotypes to the realm of brands. Our paper argues that demographic differences impact interactions with brands and offer additional explanatory power to the framework. Findings support conclusions of Kervyn et al., but they also suggest the importance of age, education, and income on warmth and competence evaluations.

The influence of country-of-origin stereotypes on consumer responses to food safety scandals: The case of the horsemeat adulteration

“…These results corroborate the findings of the stereotype content model literature (Fiske et al, 2002). Countries associated with national stereotypes of high competence and low warmth (e.g., Germany) may raise emotions of envy which in turn lead consumers to highly severe evaluations of a company associated with those countries (Bennett & Hill, 2012).…”

“…The results show that both the cognitive dimension and the affective dimension of a brand's country-of-origin influence consumers' assessment of a brands' culpability. A brand's country-of-origin stereotypes influence consumers' evaluations and consumption behaviors not only in ordinary consumption contexts, as widely found in previous literature (Bennett & Hill, 2012), but they also play a pivotal role in affecting consumers' evaluations and Table 5b Regression analysis -step 2: blame as dependent; warmth, competence, severity and interactions, and country experience, locus, stability and controllability as independents. Notes: COMP = Country-of-origin competence; WARM = Country-of-origin warmth; SEV = Perceived severity of the food scandal; EXP = Consumer direct experience with the country; LOC = Causal locus; STAB = Stability; CONTR = Controllability.…”

“…Hence, consumer predispositions toward the country-of-origin of a brand include both cognitive and affective dimensions (Bennett & Hill, 2012). This perspective is grounded in social psychology theories such as Fiske et al's (2002) stereotype content model, which maintains that consumers' attitudes about a nation are based on two dimensions: perceived competence and perceived warmth.…”

When Do Warmth and Competence Sell Best? The “Golden Quadrant” Shifts as a Function of Congruity With the Product Type, Targets’ Individual Differences, and Advertising Appeal Type

“…Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that the relevance of warmth and competence to factors present in consumer context, but absent in social perception, is important. For example, as some speculate, warmth may be more important for services that require trust (e.g., hospitals; Aaker et al, 2010) and the importance of both dimensions may vary as a function of product type (Aaker et al, 2012; and individual differences (Bennett & Hill, 2012;Fournier & Alvarez, 2012). Indirect empirical support for the relevance principle comes from research on job applications (a form of self-advertising).…”

“…Indeed, studies that use low-involving products (e.g., mineral water; Zawisza & Cinnirella, 2010; fruit juice or disposable batteries; Xu et al, 2013) report greater importance of warmth over competence for purchase intent, and those that use somewhat higher involving products (eco-friendly laptop bags or activity tracker) report greater predictive power of competence (over warmth; Aaker et al, 2010). Of interest, studies that combine data across various categories of products report importance of both dimensions (Aaker et al, 2012;Bennett & Hill, 2012;Kervyn et al, 2012). Therefore, it was predicted in Experiment 1 here that (a) high-involving products (smartphones) will trigger higher purchase intent when advertised using a competent (vs. warm) ad strategy (H1) and (b) low-involving products (toothpaste) will trigger higher purchase intent when advertised using a warm (vs. competent) ad strategy (H2).…”