Attenuating Suspicion By Revealing Seller Self-Interest: the Role of Categorical Versus Situational Association of Sinister Attribution

We test two sources of suspicion, categorical and situational association of sinister attribution. The former entails automatic suspicion of an individual simply because the individual belongs to a disliked category (e.g., we suspect salespeople in general), and we show that this is a relatively milder form of suspicion that is attenuated when the salesperson reveals her self-interest. Situational association of sinister attribution (e.g., the salesperson, who wishes to sell us a car has previously sold us a poor quality karaoke machine at her garage sale), however is a more intense from of suspicion (presumably because both information and affect of the previous negative experience is transferred to the current situation), and revealing the seller’s self-interest has little impact on attenuating suspicion.

Citation:

Subimal Chatterjee and Somali Ghosh (2009) ,"Attenuating Suspicion By Revealing Seller Self-Interest: the Role of Categorical Versus Situational Association of Sinister Attribution", in AP - Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Sridhar Samu, Rajiv Vaidyanathan, and Dipankar Chakravarti, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 4-5.