Promotion Reactance: The Role of Effort‐Reward Congruity

Abstract

Incentives may simultaneously entice consumers and arouse reactance. It is pro-posed that consumers reaffirm their autonomy by choosing rewards that are con-gruent with the promoted consumption effort (choosing reward x over reward y, given effort x). Such congruity allows consumers to construe their behavior as intrinsically motivated rather than externally induced, because the effort is its own reward. Supporting this conceptualization, the results indicate that preferences for effort-congruent rewards are attenuated among consumers with lower psycholog-ical reactance, after a reactance-reduction manipulation, when rewards are inde-pendent of personal effort, and when rewards are a by-product rather than the intention of effort. Marketing promotions and incentives can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, as prior research and common wisdom suggest, consumers are enticed by the proffered benefits and rewards. On the other hand, this ar-ticle assumes that consumers may perceive the incentives as intended to influence their consumption behavior and

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