Three Rs of Interpersonal Consumer Guilt: Relationship, Reciprocity, Reparation

Abstract

This article explores the role of consumer guilt in a retail context. The results of a field study indicate that a consumer's lack of purchase can lead to a guilt response when social connectedness with a salesperson exists and the consumer perceives he or she has control over the purchase decision. A subsequent laboratory study established that when consumers experience guilt, they intend to pursue reparative actions during future purchase interactions with the salesperson to reciprocate the initial connection they established. This reparation is directed specifically toward the salesperson and not the firm.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 198 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.