Are All Outgroups Created Equal? Consumer Identity and Dissociative Influence

Past research finds that consumers exhibit weak self-brand connections to brands associated with outgroups. We extend this work by demonstrating that only a particular type of outgroup—the dissociative reference group—has implications for consumers’ negative self-brand connections, product evaluations, and product choices. Consumers were more motivated to avoid products associated with dissociative groups than products associated with outgroups more generally. In addition, both situational priming and chronic identification with one’s ingroup moderated the avoidance of products associated with dissociative reference groups. Further, we demonstrate conditions under which dissociative influence does not occur and discuss the implications of the research.

Citation:

Katherine White and Darren W. Dahl (2007) ,"Are All Outgroups Created Equal? Consumer Identity and Dissociative Influence", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 459-460.