Threat Perception in Older Customers

David Silvera, Tracy Meyer and Daniel Laufer
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David Silvera: The University of Texas at San Antonio
Tracy Meyer: University of North Carolina Wilmington
Daniel Laufer: Yeshiva University

No 66, Working Papers from College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio

Abstract: Previous research indicates that older consumers have a reduced capacity to engage in primary control behaviors that involve active responses to counteract threats, and thus compensate with secondary control processes that involve perceiving negative events as less threatening. Two studies were conducted to examine secondary control processes in older vs. younger consumers in relation to product harm crises. In both studies, older consumers perceived themselves as less vulnerable to the product harm crisis and viewed the crisis as less severe than younger consumers. Older consumers also placed less blame on the company involved in the crisis than younger consumers, and had stronger intentions to purchase and recommend products associated with the involved company in the future. These results suggest that secondary control processes in older consumers can exert an important influence on how this consumer segment interprets negative marketing events.

Keywords: primary control; secondary control; product harm crisis; threat perception; elderly; blame attribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2009-03-31
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