Exploring Motivations for Participation in a Consumer Boycott
Jill G. Klein and Andrew John, INSEAD, France
N. Craig Smith, London Business School, U.K.
Centre for Marketing Working Paper
No. 01-701
November 2001
Jill G. Klein is Professor of Marketing at INSEAD
Andrew John is a Professor of Marketing at INSEAD
N. Craig Smith is Professor of Marketing at London Business School
London Business School, Regent's Park, London NW1 4SA, U.K.
Tel: +44 (0)20 7262-5050 Fax: +44 (0)20 7724-1145
http://www.london.edu/Marketing
Copyright ♥ London Business School 2001
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Exploring Motivations for Participation in a Consumer Boycott
Abstract
While the threat of boycotts has become an important consideration in management
decision-making, there has been little research of factors influencing an individual’s motivation
to participate in a boycott. This paper examines self-enhancement and need for consistency as
possible explanations. It also adapts theories about pressure group motivations underlying calls
for boycotts to explain individual motives for boycott participation. An empirical study found
perceived egregiousness of a company’s actions predicted boycott participation. However, the
findings demonstrate that people differ in their reasons for participating in a boycott and that
most individuals have mixed motivations, though instrumental motivations appear to
predominate.
2
Introduction
Friedman (1999, p. 4) defines consumer boycotts as “an attempt by one or more parties to
achieve certain objectives by urging individual consumers to refrain from making selected
purchases in the marketplace.” In the early 1990s, the business press appeared to agree both that
consumer boycotts work and that they were increasing in number. The Economist (1990, p. 69), for
example, concluded: “Pressure groups are besieging American companies, politicizing business and
often presenting executives with impossible choices. Consumer boycotts are becoming an
epidemic for one simple reason: they work.” That judgment is still current. As Friedman (1999)
notes, however, their frequency, scale and impact are difficult to quantify, in part because boycott
targets are generally reluctant to disclose a boycott’s effectiveness and influence on management
decision-making (including statistics on reductions in sales).
Recent prominent consumer boycotts include the European boycott of Shell over its plan to
dump the Brent Spar oil platform at sea; the U.S. boycott of Texaco over alleged racial remarks by
senior management; and the U.S. boycott of Mitsubishi over alleged sexual harassment in the
workplace. All three of these achieved most, if not all, of their organizers’ goals. Commenting on
the Shell boycott, The Economist (1995, p.15) suggested that “it may be no bad thing… for
consumers to ask for a higher standard of behavior from the firms they buy from. The best
companies… make a point of explaining their policies… Shell thought it had done enough
explaining, but had not. Regardless of the merits of its case, it made a costly blunder.” Shell’s
problems were compounded by public reactions to its involvement in Nigeria and the company’s
failure to use its influence to prevent the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogonis by the
Nigerian authorities. Criticism of Shell by environmentalists and human rights activists and the
associated boycotts were said to be key contributors to a fundamental transformation in how the
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company strives to live up to its social and ethical responsibilities (Cowe 1999; Shell 1998).
As the Shell example suggests, boycotts can serve as a form of social control of business
and as a mechanism for promoting corporate social responsibility (Smith 1990). But boycotts
may also be socially harmful. For example, it is likely that Shell’s decision to dismantle the Brent
Spar oil platform on land, as a result of the boycott, was less environmentally responsible than
the planned disposal at sea. Moreover, boycotts may be organized by groups with many different
values and political persuasions (contrast the Texaco boycott with that of Disney called by the
Southern Baptist Convention over Disney’s position on homosexuality, including its policy of
extending health benefits to partners of homosexual employees).
Friedman (1999), in a recent comprehensive study, finds that boycotts have involved a
wide variety of protest groups, target organizations, and social concerns. Nonetheless, in all
cases, boycott effectiveness is very dependent upon consumer participation. Although boycotts
are clearly important from business and societal perspectives, little research attention has been
given to why individuals choose to participate in a consumer boycott. This paper reports an
exploratory study of factors influencing an individual’s motivation to participate in a boycott.
Motivations For Boycott Participation
Boycott effectiveness entails a reduction in sales of the boycotted product; it can be
distinguished from boycott success, which is the attainment of the boycott’s objectives and may
occur without a reduction in sales (Smith 1990). Boycott effectiveness is highly dependent upon
consumer participation (a reduction in sales has occurred in some boycotts as a result of
picketing or other actions by boycott organizers that hindered product distribution). Garrett’s
(1987) review of the boycott literature hypothesized six factors in boycott participation: the
awareness of consumers; the values of potential consumer participants; the consistency of
4
boycott goals with participant attitudes; the cost of participation; social pressure; and the
credibility of the boycott leadership. This list is probably incomplete (Smith 1990) as well as
largely untested. Although some studies have looked more broadly at factors in boycott
effectiveness and success (e.g., Friedman 1999; Smith 1990) and although some empirical
studies have examined which consumers are more likely to incorporate ethical concerns in their
consumer decision-making (e.g., Webster 1975; Auger, Devinney and Louviere 1999), little
specific empirical work has been conducted on consumer motivations for boycott participation.
In the study reported in this paper, we examine self-enhancement and need for
consistency as possible explanations for boycott participation. Theories of the self suggest that
the maintenance or enhancement of self-esteem is a fundamental motive in human behavior
(Baumeister 1998; Pittman 1998). Accordingly, we might expect consumer motivation to
participate in a boycott to be influenced by esteem maintenance or enhancement. This might
occur in a variety of ways. Boycotts are often organized by public interest groups claiming to
represent fashionable or anti-establishment (and sometimes anti-business) positions. These
groups also lay claim to the moral high ground or, at least, espouse a commitment to moral
values that the firms they target for boycotts are generally less able or are unwilling to do (Smith
1990, 2001). Members of these groups often describe themselves as working for a cause (e.g.,
the organizers of the famous California grape boycott in the late 1960s referred to “La Causa”).
Thus, participating in a consumer boycott is potentially a way of identifying with fashionable
attitudes and important moral values—often at a low cost—and this helps the boycotter feel good
about himself or herself. Further, boycott participation is often a public act (e.g., not wearing
Nike sneakers, wearing a badge proclaiming support for the boycott) and this may also be selfenhancing. Although research findings are mixed, it has been theorized that group identification
5
is motivated by the need for self-enhancement, so we might expect some individuals to identify
with public interest groups in order to repair or maintain positive self-esteem (Brewer and Brown
1998).
From a more cognitive standpoint, we would not, however, wish to deny the importance
of the individual’s belief that boycott participation may help remedy a ‘wrong’ or, at least,
disassociate the individual from the company engaged in the wrong, though these behaviours also
may be self-enhancing. Hence, we theorize that boycott participation may represent an
opportunity for self-enhancement because of a boycotter’s identification with the ‘cause’ and the
group promoting the boycott as well as a sense having done something on a matter of some
importance to the individual. Having ‘clean hands’ through boycott participation also may be
self-enhancing (as we further discuss below).
Theories of the self also suggest that people wish to confirm what they already believe
about themselves and thus consistency is another important motive in human behavior, though
not, perhaps, as dominant as self-enhancement (Baumeister 1998; Pittman 1998). Noting the
shift in psychology away from the explanatory utility of the consistency principle, Cialdini et al.
(1995) offer a possible explanation for difficulties found in studies attempting to replicate
consistency effects. They suggest that individuals may differ in their preference for consistency
and that this dispositional preference may moderate consistency tendencies. Accordingly, we
theorize that individuals with a high need for consistency may be more likely to participate in
boycotts because of the heightened desire to avoid inconsistency between their purchasing
behavior and knowledge of corporate conduct of which they disapprove.
The study reported also attempts to incorporate theories about public interest group
motivations underlying calls for boycotts—adapted, however, to explain individual motives for
6
boycott participation. Friedman (1999) identifies two main purposes for boycotts: instrumental
and expressive.1 An instrumental boycott aims to coerce the target to change a disputed policy.
Goals here are often stated in precise and measurable ways, such as the lowering of prices, or the
signing of union contracts for workers. Expressive boycotts, by contrast, are a more generalized
form of protest that communicates consumers’ displeasure with the actions of the target.
Typically, this form of protest is characterized by a vague statement of goals and may simply
vent the frustrations of the protesting group.
This categorization has generally been applied at the level of the group calling for the
boycott. For example, if the organizations’ goals are to bring about a specific change, the boycott
is viewed as instrumental. At the level of the individual consumer, however, it seems likely that
participation may be driven by a variety of motives, some expressive and some instrumental. A
consumer might be angry at a firm and also hope to change its practices. There is also a third set
of possible motivations: consumers may participate in order to feel good about themselves and
avoid guilt (Smith 1990). Following Smith, we refer to this as the “clean hands” motivation. In
the present study, we examine whether consumers are indeed motivated by these three different
factors.
Finally, although not directly relevant to consumer motivations to participate in a boycott,
an important issue that remains unresolved in the boycott literature is the impact of a boycott on
product judgments. Klein, Ettenson and Morris (1998) found that consumer anger was unrelated
to consumers’ judgments of product quality. In their study of consumers in Nanjing, China,
anger toward Japan predicted product ownership, but not product judgments. In other words,
1 Friedman also discusses punitive boycotts, which for our purposes can be thought of as a type of expressive
boycott, and catalytic boycotts, which are called simply as a means of generating publicity, and do not hinge on the
motivations of consumers.
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Chinese consumers refused to purchase Japanese products, but did not denigrate the quality of
these goods. An early boycott study, however, suggests that judgments of product quality might
be positively affected by a boycott. Miller and Sturdivant’s (1977) investigation of a fast food
chain boycott found that attitudes toward the chain (for example, taste, cleanliness, and service)
actually improved over the course of the protest. One explanation for this finding is that by
idealizing the boycotted good, the consumer feels more virtuous about boycott participating in
the protest.
The Present Study
The current study examines consumer motivation for boycott participation in the context of
an actual boycott. A number of groups, many of which are coordinated by the International Baby
Milk Action Network (IBMAN), have called for the boycott of Nestlé products due to Nestlé’s
marketing practices in promoting infant formula in poor countries. IBMAN points to the dangers
of formula feeding in developing countries (most notably, lack of clean water to use in mixing
formula powder). Further, it maintains that Nestlé is exploiting vulnerable consumers and
contributes to increased infant mortality. In this study, we exposed subjects to information about
the Nestlé boycott and examined intentions to participate, motivations for participating, and
actual product choice.
Because this study is exploratory in nature, specific hypotheses were not proposed. We
examined the effects of the perceived egregiousness of Nestlé’s actions on intent to boycott,
boycott participation and brand image. We expected perceived egregiousness to be a predictor of
boycott participation, with many observers of boycotts referring to the ‘moral outrage’ of boycott
participants (Smith 1990). Going beyond this basic explanation, however, we attempted to
establish whether self-enhancement and need for consistency motivated boycott participation.
8
Further, we investigated whether consumers do indeed possess multiple motivations for boycott
participation and we examined whether instrumental, expressive or clean hands motivations
dominate as reasons for boycott participation. Finally, we examined the impact of boycott
participation on product judgments.
Methods
Subjects
One hundred and fifteen undergraduate students at a mid-Atlantic university participated in
the study. Subjects were approached individually over a number of days in a large university
lounge and were asked to complete a short survey. In return for their time, respondents were told
that they would receive either candy or a pen as a gift. Of the 155 students approached, 74%
agreed to participate in the study. The age of participants ranged from 16 to 50, with most of the
respondents of college age, and a mean age of 22.5. Sixty-two percent of the sample was female.
Stimuli, Measures and Procedure
Overview. Subjects filled out a survey in which they were exposed to information about
the Nestlé boycott. When they completed the survey, they were offered a gift in exchange for
their participation. Two-thirds of the subjects were allowed to choose from a bag of candy in
which one of the candies was a Kit-Kat bar, mentioned in the survey as a Nestlé product to be
boycotted. The Kit-Kat bar was the only chocolate option among the candies. (Although the
candy selection was made in a public place, in most instances it was only observable by the
survey administrator and thus was largely a private choice.) One-third of the subjects were
randomly selected to be in the control group and were given a pen as a gift.
Stimuli and Measures. The first part of the survey asked subjects to rate their liking of four
different foods (e.g., McDonald’s hamburgers) on an 11-point scale, with higher numbers
9
indicating greater liking. The key question in the set asked subjects to indicate their liking for
chocolate. They then read a printed web page modified from the web page of an IBFAN group:2
Nestlé, the world's largest baby food company, increases profits by promoting
artificial infant feeding in violation of the World Health Organisation's International
Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which stipulates that artificial feeding
should not be promoted as a substitute for breastfeeding.
Nestlé knows that once a bottle has come between a mother and her child
breastfeeding is more likely to fail and the company has gained a customer. Because
of Nestlé's continued disrespect for the International Code and infant health the
company is subject to a consumer boycott of its products in 19 countries, including
the United States.
The boycott will continue until Nestlé abides by the International Code and
subsequent World Health Assembly Resolutions in policy and practice.
Nestlé:
•
provides information to mothers which promotes bottle feed and
discourages breastfeeding
•
donates free samples and supplies to health facilities to encourage bottle
feeding
•
gives inducements to health workers for promoting its products
•
does not provide clear warnings on labels of the benefits of
breastfeeding and dangers of artificial feeding. In some cases the labels are in
a language that mothers are unlikely to understand
Nestlé makes a profit while others count the cost
Reversing the decline in breastfeeding could save the lives of 1.5 million infants
every year according to United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), (Ref: State of
the World's Children 1991)
UNICEF states that in areas with unsafe water, a bottle-fed baby is 25 times more
likely to die from diarrhoea than a breastfed one.
The expense of bottle feeding affects all members of the family, impoverishing those
already poor. In the developing world baby milks are over-diluted to make them last
longer, which can cause malnutrition.
Breastmilk is free, safe and best for all babies - but Nestlé know that if they don't get
babies on the bottle, they don't do business.
2 http://www.babymilkaction.org/boycott/boyct27.html
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Subjects then read a list of boycotted products. (The list on the actual web site was quite long,
but was shortened for this study to make it more likely that subjects saw that Kit-Kat candy bars
were included in the list.)
How you can help with the Campaign Against Nestlé...
•
Stop buying Nestlé products, including:
o
o
Candy:
!
Kit Kat
!
Baby Ruth
!
Butterfinger
Beverages
!
Nescafe
!
Nestea
!
Perrier
After reading this information about the boycott, subjects completed a questionnaire. The
first three questions measured the perceived egregiousness of Nestlé’s actions (e.g., “I think that
Nestlé’s actions are very wrong.”). Next, subjects indicated their intention to participate in the
boycott. They were then asked to list reasons why they might participate in the boycott, reasons
why they might not participate, and what they might think or feel if they purchased a Nestlé
product. (The present paper does not focus on the analyses of these open-ended responses.)
Subjects then completed a constant sum scale in which they allotted 100 points across eight
possible reasons for participating in the boycott (plus an “other” category). Each reason was
related to either an instrumental, expressive, or clean hands motivation . Next, subjects rated
Nestlé on three dimensions (untrustworthy – trustworthy; bad – good; not at all ethical – very
11
ethical) and then completed the brief form of the Cialdini et al. (1995) preference for consistency
scale. Finally, they provided demographic information about themselves and indicated whether
they were already familiar with the Nestle boycott before seeing the questionnaire (12.6% said
they knew about the boycott before the study).
After completing the survey, one-third of the participants were given an inexpensive pen in
gratitude for their participation. The other subjects were asked to choose candy from a clear
plastic bag carried by the researcher. The researcher made sure that all participants, including
those in the pen (control) condition, saw the candy. This ensured that all subjects were equally
primed to desire candy/chocolate. Subjects selected from three different treats: two generally
unpopular candies (‘Mary Janes’ and ‘Caramel Creams’—both second-tier brands) and a
miniature Kit-Kat bar. (Unpopular candies were chosen to increase the cost of boycotting Nestlé
by forgoing the Kit-Kat bar.) After their choice, subjects were asked to indicate how much they
liked Kit-Kat bars, and how much they liked chocolate.
Results
Egregiousness, Intent and Participation
Two items (“I think that Nestlé’s actions are very wrong” and “Nestlé’s promotion of
artificial infant feeding is inexcusable”) were averaged as a measure of egregiousness. (A third
item was not included because of non-significant correlations with the other two items). There
was variance in perceptions of egregiousness with 20% or the subjects giving ratings of 3 or
below (on a 7-point scale) and 36% of the subjects giving ratings of 5 or above. The mean was
4.67, and the standard deviation was 1.58.
Across the full sample, 45.1% reported that they would definitely or probably participate in
the Nestle boycott (46.6% absent the control group; i.e., the “non-pen” participants). As
12
expected, egregiousness was a significant predictor of the intention to boycott (b = .40, p <
.001). Logit regression results (excluding the pen condition subjects) likewise showed that
egregiousness predicted forgoing the Kit-Kat (b = .53, p < .01). Intention to participate in the
boycott was also a powerful predictor of forgoing the Kit Kat (b = 1.34, p < .001). Brand image
was also affected by perceived egregiousness. The three brand image items (trust, good and
ethical) were averaged (Cronbach’s a = .83). The greater the degree to which subjects thought
that Nestlé’s actions were egregious, the more negative was the brand image (b = -.48, p < .001).
These results also indicate that boycott intentions are strongly predictive of actual behaviour.
13
Self-Enhancement and Consistency as Motives for Boycott Participation
The relationship between Preference for Consistency (PFC), boycott intent and
participation was examined. PFC did not predict intention or participation (r’s n.s.). Further, we
examined whether those high in PFC would be more likely to show consistency between their
intent to boycott and their actual participation, but results were non-significant (χ2 n.s.). Further,
the ability of egregiousness to predict participation was not different for those low versus high in
PFC (based on a median split of PFC; b = .11, p < .05 and b = .13, p < .05, respectively). Thus,
the preference for consistency does not appear to mediate the relationship between attitudes or
intentions and actual behavior.
The correlations between PFC and motivations for participation were examined. Results
showed that the only motivation correlated with PFC was, “It would make me feel bad if other
people saw me eating a Nestle product” (r = .28, p < .01). We might speculate that this is some
indication of a need for “external consistency” (being perceived by others as consistent).
We found no evidence of self-enhancement by boycotters in this study. In particular, we
did not observe any increase in liking for chocolate among boycotters, which could reasonably
have been interpreted as a self-enhancement effect.
Instrumental, Expressive and Clean Hands Motivations
Table 1 shows the points allotted to each of the motivations for boycott participation.
Subjects tended to dismiss punishment, anger and concerns about other people as reasons for
participation. More instrumental motivations, however, were endorsed. The various motivations
can be categorized as expressive (2 and 3, below), instrumental (4, 7, 8), and clean hands (1, 5
and 6), with the latter comprised of feelings about oneself anticipated as a result of participation
(or non-participation). The average points given for the instrumental items (m = 17.05) was
14
significantly higher than for the expressive (m = 4.72) and clean hands items (m = 9.41; t(109) =
10.84, p < .001 and t(109) = 5.01, p < .001, respectively). Further, clean hands motivations were
allotted more points than expressive motivations (t(109) = 4.61, p < .001). Note that there were
no significant differences between those who chose the Kit-Kat (non-boycotters) and those who
did not (boycotters) for any of the three types of motivations.
There was a relationship between egregiousness and two of the motivation types: the more
egregious Nestlé was thought to be, the more people were motivated by instrumental and
expressive motivations (r = .25, p < .01 and r = .19, p < .05, respectively). There was no
relationship between egregiousness and clean hands (r = .04, n.s.).
Only 7.3% of the sample indicated no instrumental motivation for participation, 22.7%
indicated no emotional basis for participation, and 45.5% indicated no expressive motivations.
Thus the vast majority of the sample had mixed motivations for participating in the boycott.
These results are illustrated in Figure1, which shows the percentage of respondents who selected
the various motivations. (The figures do not total to 100 percent because 3 percent of
respondents cited none of these motives.)
Figure 1: Mixed Motivations for Boycott Participation
Instrumental
Clean Hands
23
15
4
51
4
0
0
Expressive
15
Table 1: Motivations for Boycott Participation
Motivationsa
Mean
s.d.__
Expressive
2. I want to express my anger at Nestlé
4.75
7.84
3. I want to punish Nestlé
4.68
7.12
4. I think that I should use my boycott decisions to
voice my opinion
20.22
23.32
7. It is important to try to stop the sale of infant formula to
poor countries
16.15
17.55
8. By participating in this boycott I will help put pressure
on Nestlé to change its policies
14.78
15.03
1. I would feel guilty if I bought a Nestlé product
13.86
18.29
5. Buying Brand X instead of Nestlé would make me
feel good
11.87
15.43
Instrumental
‘Clean Hands’
6. It would make me feel bad if other people saw me eating
a Nestlé product
2.49
6.00
Other
9. Other reasons
10.92
25.45
_________________________________________________________________
a
Numbering reflects item order in the questionnaire.
Effects of Boycotting on Product Judgments
Boycott participation appears to have led to product denigration. There were no significant
differences in liking for chocolate, as assessed at the beginning of the study, across the three
groups (boycotters, non-boycotters, and the pen control) (F(111) = 1.51, n.s.). However, when
16
subjects were asked at the very end of the study (after receiving their gift), how much they liked
Kit Kat, boycotters gave significantly lower ratings than the other two groups (F(2,111) = 7.47, p
< .001; see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Ratings of Kit-Kat
8.0
7.5
7.0
Mean KITKAT
6.5
6.0
5.5
boycotters
non-boycotters
pen
Further, a mixed-model ANOVA showed that liking for chocolate decreased among the
boycotters. (Recall that the Kit Kat bar was the only chocolate option among the candy choices.)
A marginally significant interaction was found between condition (boycotter, non-boycotter, pen
control) and time of chocolate rating (F(2,111) = 3.07, p = .051; see Figure 3). Boycotters
showed a decrease in liking for chocolate over the course of the study, providing additional
evidence that the boycotted product was denigrated.
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Figure 3: Change in Chocolate Ratings
9.0
8.8
8.6
8.4
8.2
8.0
7.8
Me
an
7.6
CHOCPRE
7.4
CHOCPOST
boycott
non-boy
pen
DISCUSSION
The findings of the present study demonstrate that people differ in their reasons for
participating in a boycott and that most individuals have mixed motivations for their
participation. Instrumental motivations were found to predominate among the reasons that
subjects said would lead them to participate in the boycott, but clean hands motivations were also
common. About half of the sample indicated that they would boycott to express anger or to
punish Nestlé.
The present study is exploratory in nature, and future research should examine, in more
controlled situations, the link between motivation and participation. Perhaps it is difficult for
people to understand and express their reasons for participation. For example, the expression of
anger might play a larger role than is realized as the boycott decision is made. Still, the current
18
work strongly suggests that the motivations for participation within a given individual are multifaceted and quite complex. The simple categorization of boycotts as expressive or instrumental
on the basis of the goals of the organization calling for the boycott is too simple a scheme for
understanding the complex decision faced by the consumer.
Further limitations of the study include the possibility of demand effects for the constant
sum scale; for example, “non-boycotters” might have reported a relatively high degree of some
type of motivation to boycott (our inclusion of the response category “other reasons”
notwithstanding). Also, it would have been useful to measure prior attitudes to the company
(Nestle) and the focal brand (Kit Kat), as well as to the product category (chocolate).
Individuals had different responses to the accusations against Nestlé. Some thought that
Nestlé’s actions were particularly egregious while others did not. These opinions were highly
predictive of boycott intention, actual participation, and brand image—an important finding in
our view. While subjects did not indicate a strong motivation to express anger, those who felt
that Nestlé’s actions were particularly egregious were more likely to cite expressive motivations.
Instrumental motivations, which were much more common, were also more strongly endorsed
by those who felt that Nestlé’s actions were egregious. Thus, believing that a firm’s actions are
wrong is related to an increased motivation to express anger at the firm and to change the firm’s
actions. But these beliefs do not affect the motivation to avoid guilt or to feel good about
oneself.
Contrary to past research that has shown no relationship between consumer anger and
consumer judgements of product quality (Klein, Ettenson and Morris 1998), or that has shown
that product judgments improve over the course of a boycott (Miller and Sturdivant 1977), our
results suggest that product denigration occurs, particularly for those who participate in the
19
boycott. Boycotters decreased their liking of chocolate after forgoing a Kit Kat bar, and gave
lower ratings to Kit Kat than did those who did not boycott or the control subjects. (Note again
that levels of chocolate liking were equal among the three groups at the start of the study.) Thus,
instead of exaggerating their personal sacrifice, boycotters seem instead to be reducing their
dissonance by explaining their boycott behavior, in part at least, as a judgment of the product
itself. If these results were only found for Kit Kat ratings, one might conclude that Nestlé’s
negative actions with infant formula somehow spread to quality judgments of its products (e.g.,
“Nestlé does and makes bad things”). The fact that liking for chocolate decreased among
boycotters, however, argues against this explanation of the results. It seems more likely that
product (and chocolate) denigration made it easier for boycotters to pay the cost of boycotting.
They simply reduced the cost of going without the Kit Kat bar, by decreasing their liking of
chocolate and their judgments of Kit Kat. These findings suggest an additional penalty for the
firm that is boycotted: judgments of product quality can suffer during a boycott. Future research
should examine whether these perceptions improve, or return to normal, after that boycott has
ended. More broadly, future research might also look at the relationships between the motives
underlying boycott behavior, at personality variables such as rebelliousness, and use non-student
(and older) samples. Also, in light of our results regarding motives and the possibility of a social
desirability bias, researchers investigating this topic might consider including hypothesisguessing measures. Clearly, research of this topic also might be informed by ethnographic
research with active boycotters.
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