Context
In the 1990s, curvaceous women were stigmatized by comparison with thin supermodels, whereas curves were considered a sign of fertility in Ancient Greece. The very same attribute can be either viewed positively or negatively depending on the context. When the attribute is viewed negatively in a given context because it deviates from what others consider normal, it is called a stigma. A stigma does not exist in absolute terms, it can only be inferred given a certain situation. Since stigmas are negatively valuated, their bearers are constantly looking out for cues that may signal the audience’s threatening or benevolent intentions towards them. They will act – and notably consume – according to the type of audience they believe they are facing. This is what Harmeling, Mende, Scott and Palmatier prove in an article that was published in 2020 in the Journal of Marketing Research.
Research questions
The authors base their research on three assumptions:
– bearers of a potential stigma want to protect themselves from harm and constantly read into cues that may indicate how threatening or benevolent their co-consumers may be,
– these anticipations shape their consumption behavior,
– stigma bearers tend to focus on their stigma to define themselves, hence they may feel closer and safer with a person sharing their stigma rather than another attribute.
Therefore, their research aims at confirming these assumptions through these questions:
– do consumers managing stigmas expect co-consumers sharing their stigma to be more benevolent than those who do not share the stigma?
– do these anticipations influence their consumption?
Method
To answer these research questions, the authors investigated how different audience cues (signals of the audience sharing the stigma or not) influenced the consumption behavior (beneficial VS high return-risk) of people bearing two types of stigma (disease and overweight) through 4 studies:
– In study 1, the authors partnered with a health-care firm who gave them access to 483 participants with different diseases who were presented with a written scenario to join a “general” health group or a support group of others sharing the same disease.
– Study 2 involved 396 US MTurk participants, using overweight are the potentially stigmatizing attribute. Audience cues were manipulated through images featuring thin or overweight models.
– In study 3, the authors tested 389 US MTurk participants for the impact of stigma exposure on audience perceptions and consumption behavior.
– In study 4, 970 consumers were tested to check the impact of a benevolent VS neutral formulation on the consumption behavior of stigmatized consumers.
Results
– Bearers of a stigmatizing attribute are particularly attentive to cues that inform them about the audience they are likely to encounter during their consumption experience. The more the cue lets them believe that the audience share their stigma, the less they feel threatened by the audience and the less they anticipate the audience will devaluate them.
– Since audience cues influence devaluation anticipations, bearers of a potential stigma adapt their consumption depending on their perceptions of the audience. The lower the stigma, the lower the following effects.
When consumers managing a stigma are presented with unshared audience cues, they anticipate devaluating reactions from the audience, which leads them to engage in potentially risky consumption behaviors to get rid of the stigma.
Conversely, when consumers managing a stigma are presented with shared audience cues, they anticipate benevolent reactions from the audience, and they show greater interest for beneficial consumption behaviors. However, even when audience cues are shared, stigma bearers sometimes still engage in detrimental consumption. Fortunately, in the case of consumers with highly stigmatizing attributes, emphasizing the benevolent intentions of a shared audience helps decrease detrimental behavior. However, in the case of an unshared audience, such practices may generate a “spillover effect”: consumers’ anticipations of an unfavorable audience make them suspicious of a manipulative intent of the ad.
– When reducing the exposure of the stigma, bearers of stigmatizing attributes engage less in detrimental consumption, because they may feel less threatened by audience devaluation. However, stigma exposure does not favor benevolent anticipations, which is the main determinant of beneficial consumption.
Why is this article relevant for researchers?
This research shows how anticipations of co-consumers’ judgment affects consumption. It contributes to the literature on homophily by proving that bearers of a stigma define themselves through their stigma rather than through other attributes. Moreover, these results contribute to the literature about consumer empowerment. Indeed, the article highlights the “dark side” of stigmas and reveals that the fear of devaluation shapes the way stigma bearers expect co-consumers to react, which affects their consumption.
Obvious avenues for future research include the generalization of these results to other types of stigmas – since “only” two types of stigmas were tested in this article – , to specific types of audiences (known, like friends and family, or random), to the consumption of close relations of stigma bearers.
This research shows how co-consumers’ benevolent judgment can empower stigma bearers. However, empowerment does not only rely on external factors and can come from within the stigma bearer, through self-acceptance. Future research may investigate this avenue.
Moreover, by definition, a stigma is viewed as a negative attribute, through the lens of a specific context. In another context, the same attribute could be considered as positive. Therefore, future research could investigate how to turn stigmas into positive attributes, which is a blooming practice among marketers. For instance, according to the body-positive movement, overweight should no longer be viewed as a stigma, but as a mere example of diversity.
Why is this article relevant for professionals?
This article is highly relevant for professionals, because it shows that some deeply rooted marketing practices may be ill-founded. For instance, advertisements to join the gym often feature thin models (see this advertisement of a French health club) who are meant to be role-models for overweight people. This research proves that such ads do not motivate overweight people to join the gym, contrary to what marketers expect, and may even encourage them to consume products that promise a rapid weight loss instead at potentially great physical cost.
Therefore, the authors recommend that marketers addressing consumers managing stigmas favor these strategies:
1) Removing audience cues, so that bearers of a stigma do not feel threatened by ambiguous or unshared cues. For instance, on their Twitter profile, WW (formerly Weight Watchers) describe themselves as “for people, families, communities, the world—for everyone”. In marketing terms, their positioning consists in helping everyone maintain a healthy weight, instead of helping overweight people slim down. To throw people off the scent of an association with the “overweight” stigma, WW thoroughly plays the diversity card by engaging in movement such as Black Lives Matter hence removing audience cues.
2) Signaling that the stigmatizing attribute will be concealed. To this end, transathlete.com provides useful information to better include transgender people in sport teams, which are generally segmented using “biological sex”.
3) Combining shared audience cues and highlighting benevolent intentions. For example, coach Valerie Orsoni shares her personal experience of being overweight to signal her benevolent intentions towards overweight people.
4) Balancing the references to the stigma when communicating. In the fashion industry, overweight people could be discouraged from buying clothes when they were only worn by thin models. Thankfully, such initiatives such as Asos’s See My Fit allow buyers to see how clothes fit different morphologies.
Since this article sheds light on the role of anticipation of co-consumers’ judgment, marketers should investigate any ways of increasing consumer empowerment and self-acceptance. For instance, Avert works hard at empowering patients thanks to HIV personal stories that show how people deal with and sometimes overpower the disease.
Finally, the authors insist on the role of the governments in the battle against stigmatization. Through public policies, governments and institutions may prevent certain attributes from becoming stigmas. The Dear Future Mom campaign proves that people with Down syndrome can live as happy a life as other people.