Desire to Acquire: Powerlessness and Compensatory Consumption

Derek D. Rucker and Adam D. Galinsky

Journal of Consumer Research, 2008, vol. 35, issue 2, 257-267

Abstract: Three experiments examine how power affects consumers' spending propensities. By integrating literatures suggesting that (a) powerlessness is aversive, (b) status is one basis of power, and (c) products can signal status, the authors argue that low power fosters a desire to acquire products associated with status to compensate for lacking power. Supporting this compensatory hypothesis, results show that low power increased consumers' willingness to pay for auction items and consumers' reservation prices in negotiations but only when products were status related. The link between powerlessness and compensatory consumption has broad implications both for consumers' health and well-being and for understanding the psychological state of power. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (144)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/588569 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:35:y:2008:i:2:p:257-267

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().