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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Despite continuous polarisation along political party lines, it remains unclear how
differences in political ideology impact the choices consumers make. This dissertation
presents a field experiment performed to investigate the impact of political ideology on
consumers’ behaviour, by examining the influence of traits associated with a conservative or
liberal ideology on choice preferences. We hereby draw on the motivated social cognition
theory, which establishes conservatism as a defence system against threats and on the
ideology–social comparison link. Our analysis of the choice preferences of conservatives and
liberals regarding luxurious and green products shows that political ideology indeed
influences conservatives’ and liberals’ product choices and that these choices can be
subconsciously affected by selected priming tasks. This research therefore emphasises the
importance of political ideology for consumer behaviour and its implications on choice
preferences by unveiling the predictive power of political tendencies.
Description
Keywords
Political ideology Consumer behaviour Priming Conspicuous consumption