Feeling Right Versus Feeling Wrong: The Reliance on Stereotypes in Consumer Judgments

27 Pages Posted: 19 Feb 2011

See all articles by Tamar Avnet

Tamar Avnet

Yeshiva University - Syms School of Business

Date Written: February 17, 2011

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that the effect of feeling right versus feeling wrong does not need to be limited to external cues only. Extending current research on the effect of regulatory fit on evaluations, this paper examines whether people’s fit experiences can also be applied to and affect the perceived "correctness" of internal cues, specifically stereotypes. Using previous findings of people’s stereotypical beliefs about the honesty of a for-profit and a not-for-profit organization, this paper demonstrates that regulatory fit can increase people’s reliance on stereotypes making evaluations stereotype-consistent while regulatory non-fit can decrease people’s reliance on stereotypes making evaluations stereotype-inconsistent. Therefore a for-profit organization is perceived to be more honest under fit but less honest under non-fit (as compared to a not-for-profit). Implications for companies in a PR crisis are discussed.

Keywords: Regulatory fit, feeling right, non-profit organizations, stereotypes, consumer judgment

Suggested Citation

Avnet, Tamar, Feeling Right Versus Feeling Wrong: The Reliance on Stereotypes in Consumer Judgments (February 17, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1763394 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1763394

Tamar Avnet (Contact Author)

Yeshiva University - Syms School of Business ( email )

New York, NY
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
64
Abstract Views
774
Rank
623,067
PlumX Metrics