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Safety First? The Role of Emotion in Safety Product Betrayal Aversion

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  • Andrew D. Gershoff
  • Jonathan J. Koehler

Abstract

Consumers often face decisions about whether to purchase products that are intended to protect them from possible harm. However, safety products rarely provide perfect protection and sometimes "betray" consumers by causing the very harm they are intended to prevent. Examples include vaccines that may cause disease and air bags that may explode with such force that they cause death. Expanding research on betrayal aversion, this study examines the role of emotions in consumers' tendency to choose safety options that provide less overall protection in order to eliminate a very small probability of harm due to safety product betrayal. In five studies we find that betrayal aversion is reduced and safer alternatives are selected when factors that dampen the emotional response to potential betrayals are introduced or taken into account. These factors include changing the betrayal from an action to an omission (study 1), introducing positive imagery (study 2), introducing visual representations of risk (study 3), making the decision for another rather than oneself (study 4), and intuitive thinking style (study 5).

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew D. Gershoff & Jonathan J. Koehler, 2011. "Safety First? The Role of Emotion in Safety Product Betrayal Aversion," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(1), pages 140-150.
  • Handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:doi:10.1086/658883
    DOI: 10.1086/658883
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    Cited by:

    1. Jason Aimone & Sheryl Ball & Brooks King-Casas, 2015. "The Betrayal Aversion Elicitation Task: An Individual Level Betrayal Aversion Measure," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-12, September.
    2. Cubitt, Robin & Gächter, Simon & Quercia, Simone, 2017. "Conditional cooperation and betrayal aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 110-121.
    3. Martín-Santana, Josefa D. & Reinares-Lara, Eva & Romero-Domínguez, Laura, 2020. "Modelling the role of anticipated emotions in blood donor behaviour: A cross-sectional study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    4. Jason Aimone & Daniel Houser, 2012. "What you don’t know won’t hurt you: a laboratory analysis of betrayal aversion," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(4), pages 571-588, December.
    5. Marina Bianchi, 2015. "Willingness to believe and betrayal aversion: the special role of trust in art exchanges," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 39(2), pages 133-151, May.
    6. Polman, Evan, 2012. "Self–other decision making and loss aversion," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 141-150.
    7. Aimone, Jason A. & Houser, Daniel, 2013. "Harnessing the benefits of betrayal aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 1-8.
    8. Freling, Traci H. & Yang, Zhiyong & Saini, Ritesh & Itani, Omar S. & Rashad Abualsamh, Ryan, 2020. "When poignant stories outweigh cold hard facts: A meta-analysis of the anecdotal bias," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 51-67.
    9. Jeffrey V. Butler & Joshua B. Miller, 2018. "Social Risk and the Dimensionality of Intentions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 2787-2796, June.
    10. Liu, Yi & Polman, Evan & Liu, Yongfang & Jiao, Jiangli, 2018. "Choosing for others and its relation to information search," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 65-75.
    11. Mukherjee, Ashesh & Burnham, Thomas & King, Dan, 2021. "Anticipated firm interaction can bias expressed customer satisfaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).

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