Seminar: Forgoing Consumption Experiences that Others Cannot Access

Seminar: Forgoing Consumption Experiences that Others Cannot Access

Abstract: Consumers often face constraints that restrict their access to various consumption experiences. While prior research suggests that consuming products in social presence enhances enjoyment and fosters social connections, we investigate what happens when shared consumption is not feasible due to others’ constraints. Through eleven pre-registered studies (total N = 3,389), we find that consumers forgo desired consumption experiences (via abstaining or downgrading) when in the presence of others lacking access to the same consumption experience due to various constraints (i.e., financial, size availability, dietary restrictions). Forgoing consumption is driven by the desire to avoid guilt that would arise from consuming and leads to less favorable evaluations of brands that do not provide access to the constrained counterpart. However, we demonstrate that the decision to forgo consumption is often misguided, as counterparts without access actually prefer consumers with access to consume. These findings extend research on shared consumption, consumer sacrifice, and nonconsumption by identifying interpersonal factors that drive consumers to abstain from accessible and desired experiences, with important implications for brands’ inclusivity strategies.

Speaker: Irene Scopelliti is Professor of Marketing and Behavioural Science at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass), head of the Marketing group, and Co-Director of the Behavioural Research Lab. Her research interests are in the domain of consumer psychology, judgment, and decision making.She holds a PhD in Management (major in Marketing) from Bocconi University, a MSc in Economics and Management from the University of Calabria (Italy), and a BA in Music. Before joining Bayes, Irene was a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University.Her research has been published in leading journals including Management Science, Psychological Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Management, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and has been featured by major news organizations including Forbes, Time Magazine, BBC News, the New York Times, the Independent, and the Atlantic.At Bayes Irene teaches analytical methods for marketing in the MSc program, and experimental design and analysis in the PhD program.