Purchasing Guilt: Conceptualization and Propositions for Future Research, an Extended Abstract

Abstract

Guilt is a common element in the post-purchase consumer experience (Kivetz and Simonson 2002). It can be a major source of encouragement for customers to engage in corrective action, regardless of the customer’s level of satisfaction with a product of interest (cf. Frijda 1986). Guilt surrounding purchase experiences has been found to confound or beget consumer satisfaction (Goldsmith et al. 2012) and related post-purchase behavior, thereby suggesting the need for research into the emotion and its impact on retailing (Dahl et al. 2005). The overlap between guilt and consumer behavior has raised increasing interest over the last decade (Dahl et al. 2005; Han et al. 2014). Guilt has found use as a mechanism for controlling unpleasant consumer behaviors such as shoplifting (Alstete 2006) and drinking (Agrawal and Duhachek 2010) and as a powerful motivational force to encourage specific coping strategies (Duhachek et al. 2012). However, the question of what constitutes consumer purchasing guilt and how the emotion may be mitigated or induced in retailing is not well understood. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of consumer emotions in the retail experience by exploring purchasing guilt and its implications for consumer behavior in retail settings. Although the implications of guilt can be far-reaching (Tangney and Dearing 2002), we restrict our investigation to extending research propositions for exploring guilt-inducing tactics (Miceli and Castelfranchi 1998) and their connections to purchasing behavior.