Word of Mouth as Compensatory Consumer Behavior: Can Talking About Brands Restore Consumers' Self-Concepts After Self-Threat?

Self-threat occurs when a person encounters information that calls into question the positivity of a given self-view (Gao et al. 2009), resulting in psychological discomfort (Festinger 1957). Symbolic self-completion (Wicklund and Gollwitzer 1981) is one strategy (Mandel et al. 2017) consumers deploy in response. As supported by the compensatory consumption literature, products can be consumed for psychological value (Ariely and Norton 2009) and their symbolic associations incorporated into consumers' self-concepts (Belk 1988). Self-threat also affects consumers' decision to spread WOM. People are more likely to spread WOM about symbolic products (Chung and Darke 2006) that signal identity-related aspects of their self-concepts (Berger 2014), and to spread WOM after self-threat (Packard and Wooten 2013). We propose that WOM can actually resolve specific, self-concept related self-threats when spread about a brand that is symbolically congruent with the threat domain, termed a restorative brand. Under self-threat, consumers who spread WOM about a restorative (non-restorative) brand should exhibit higher (lower) self-perceptions on the threatened attribute (H1). Further, psychological discomfort should mediate the interactive effect of threat and brand restorativeness on self-perceptions (H2). Evidence suggests that self-esteem may moderate the proposed effects as low-esteem consumers feel lower self-efficacy (Sherer et al. 1982) and exhibit stronger attachment to symbolic brands (Dommer et al. 2013). Under self-threat, spreading WOM about a restorative (non-restorative) brand will enhance (reduce) self-perceptions on the threatened attribute through psychological discomfort for low self-esteem consumers (H3). Study 1: Participants (n = 128, average age 36, 46% male) were randomly assigned to a condition where they wrote about a time they acted ethically (no self-threat) or unethically (self-threat). Participants were also randomly assigned to a restorative (picture of Brawny paper towels with packaging promoting relationship with the Wounded Warrior Project) or non-restorative (picture of Brawny paper towels with original packaging) brand condition. All participants spread WOM by commenting on a mock Brawny Facebook page. Participants rated self-perceptions of ethics using items adapted from Reed, Aquino, and Levy (2007; α = .60). A two-way ANO VA with threat and brand (IVs) and self-perceptions of ethics (DV) revealed a direct effect of threat (F(1, 124) =