The political psychology behind consumer decisions: the complex relationship between political ideology and political consumerism

Abstract

Political consumerism (PC) refers to consumers boycotting or deliberately buying (“buycotting”) products or brands for political, moral, or ethical reasons. This paper presents three studies that consider the intricacies of the relationship between political ideology and political consumerism. Study 1 examines reactive political consumerism, an underexplored form of PC that involves protecting a company from a boycott by buycotting said company. Though previous research suggests that PC is more prevalent on the political left, Study 1 surveys 713 participants to find that self-reported reactive PC is more common on the political right. This novel finding suggests that different types of political consumerism may show separate relationships with ideology. Study 2 separates ideology into multiple dimensions, using secondary data analysis on 30,000 participants in the British Election Study to find that a social authoritarian dimension of political ideology appears more influential than an economic left-right dimension. Study 3 investigates one mechanism linking authoritarianism to PC by surveying 1,018 participants to compare the correlation between participants’ social norm perception of PC and their own PC behavior among high- and low-authoritarian individuals; the high authoritarian group showed a significantly larger correlation. This supports the novel idea that the heightened social conventionalism of more authoritarian individuals may deter them from politically motivated consumption, as this behavior is not considered socially normative. Together, these three studies probe psychological nuances to present novel findings on the complex ways in which the political ideological dimensions of left-right, economic left-right, and social authoritarianism link to political consumerism.