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Writer's pictureCarolina Cuervo-Robert

Untangling Consumer Polarization: A Journey From Assumption to Evidence

Written by Carolina Cuervo-Robert, Ph.D. candidate at Toulouse School of Management (France)


In recent years, the rise of consumer polarization has become part of the public narrative. Recent articles often explain how people are becoming more polarized and point to the elements fuelling this divide. In a recent IJRM article, Justin Pomerance (University of New Hampshire) and Leaf Van Boven (University of Colorado Boulder) challenge this assumption. They argue that while we tend to believe others let politics influence their consumption choices, the reality is often different.



Simple ideas lead to difficult papers

Justin started working on this paper back when he was a PhD candidate at UC Boulder. Even before beginning his dissertation, he had worked with Leaf as a research assistant in the social psychology department. Together they had decided to dive into this topic of polarization, thinking they would develop a simple article about how politics influence people’s consumption choices. However, the data spoke differently, and the paper took an unexpected turn. Instead of seeing that Democrats or Republicans prefer consuming products and services that align with their political values, they find that in most cases, people do not care that much. The shocking twist is that while people didn’t rely much on their own politics, they consistently assumed that others did–and even recommended products to others based on political ideologies.


And as many of us probably already know, unexpected results come with a new challenge: choosing which direction the paper is going to take amid numerous possible avenues. 


But deciding on this might not be as straightforward as we might believe.


As Justin puts it,

“Research is hard, is so unpredictable, it's so not linear. It's true of every paper and particularly true on this paper which took a winding road to publication.” 

Justin Pomerance


Even though Justin and Leaf decided to focus narrowly on exaggerated preference polarization, they were still forced to explore different potential explanations to legitimize their claim and the paper became a not-so-simple one. For instance, they studied the effect of exaggerated preference polarization by making participants give recommendations to people they didn’t know, as well as to people they did know. Surprisingly, they found that even for our closest friends, we project their politics onto the recommendations we give them.  


The challenge of staying focused

As young researchers, we want to explore everything. It can be tempting to chase every possible idea or explanation that arises during a project.


Justin admits he was no exception to ambitious enthusiasm: 

“I think during my PhD I was guilty of something a lot of younger researchers do, is wanting to do everything in one paper, wanting to bring tons of different things into one paper.” 

Justin Pomerance


In this project, Justin was particularly tempted to pursue additional explanations for their results, but doing so would have risked straying from the paper’s core argument. He credits Leaf’s experience as a senior researcher for helping them stay on track. Leaf’s prior experience in marketing research allowed them to navigate the complexities and keep the paper focused.


Marketing is a tent

Although interdisciplinary research is increasingly encouraged and has, to some degree, become common practice, many marketing scholars remain hesitant to incorporate ideas from other fields. They fear that drawing too much from other disciplines will dilute the work, making it feel less like marketing research.


Justin admits he was no exception to ambitious enthusiasm: 

“Sometimes in marketing we’re averse to engaging too deeply with the psychology literature for fear of doing sort of ‘psych research’ and not ‘marketing research’. But this stuff is foundational in a lot of ways.” 

Justin Pomerance


Justin, however, has consistently drawn inspiration from various fields. In this paper, Justin and Leaf relied heavily on Leaf’s background in psychology, as they drew on research featuring the differences in self-other perceptions, and how we tend to assume that others will be more susceptible to biases than we are.

 Marketing, Justin suggests, should be viewed as a tent - a broad field that is built on external inspiration - and opening the door to insights from other disciplines will without a doubt add flavour and richness to the research we do.


Read the paper

Interested in reading all the details about exaggerated preference polarization? Read the full paper here.


Want to cite the paper?

J. Pomerance and L. Van Boven, Party Over Product: People Exaggerate the Influence of Political Cues on Others’ Consumption Preferences, International Journal of Research in Marketing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2024.07.007

 

Meet Justin Pomerance


What are the best and worst pieces of advice that you’ve ever received?


I think that there are two sides of the same coin. I’ve gotten advice from people telling me that there’s only one way to do something. Professionally, people will give you advice on how there’s just one way to be a successful scholar. And on the life side, you sort of get that advice too, you need to be married by this age and things like that. The best advice that I’ve ever gotten from many different people is that there’s no one best way to do any of that stuff. If you’re becoming a researcher, I’m not sure I would advise other people to sit in on a psych lab. That worked for me, but my working style is different from lots of other professors or grad students that I know. You have to find what authentically works for you, that’s what is going to make you successful and that looks different for everybody, especially in academia where there's so little structure.


If you could choose a tagline or slogan for yourself, as a professor, what would it be?


Work hard and be nice to people. My wife got me this after I finished my PhD, and it lives right here by my desk. I think that would be my tagline. To credit the artist, his name is Anthony Burrill.








 






This article was written by

Carolina Cuervo-Robert

Ph.D. candidate at Toulouse School of Management (France)



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