Abstract
People are generally defense motivated during interactions with salesclerks. In this research, we demonstrate that defense motivation can make consumers vulnerable to a less stereotypical persuasion attempt as compared to a more stereotypical one. The consequence is that consumers are willing to pay a higher price and exhibit greater trust in a salesclerk who uses a less stereotypical persuasion attempt. Thus, the stereotypicality of a persuasion attempt is identified as one key factor that impacts perceptions of trustworthiness. In addition, we show that accuracy motivations can attenuate the positive effect of a less stereotypical persuasion attempt. In other words, accuracy motivations can protect consumers from being susceptible to less stereotypical persuasion attempts.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding that was provided to both authors in terms of a doctoral fellowship to the first author and a Standard Research Grant to the second author. The authors thank Antonia Mantonakis and Mei-Ling Wei for helpful suggestions and comments on a previous draft and Anne Eastman and Leta Bayak for their help in conducting the field study.
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Wenxia Guo and Kelley J. Main contributed equally to this manuscript.
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Guo, W., Main, K.J. The vulnerability of defensiveness: The impact of persuasion attempts and processing motivations on trust. Mark Lett 23, 959–971 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-012-9197-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-012-9197-y