RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

Betrayal aversion: The role of the need for certainty (w/ A. Gershoff)

A form of betrayal occurs when agents of protection cause the very harm that they are trusted to guard against. Examples include a security guard trusted to protect a store who steals from his employer and an airbag trusted to protect a life exploding with such force that it causes death. This paper will discuss consumer betrayal aversion, expanding on recent research (Koehler & Gershoff, in press) by examining need for certainty (NFC) as moderator of consumers’ reactions to instances of betrayal. A 2 (betrayal: high versus low) X 2 (explicitness of promise: high versus low) X 2 (NFC: high versus low) between subjects study is described. Consistent with the hypotheses, those high in NFC compared to low in NFC give more punishment to a betrayer and have more negative emotions, while no differences in punishment and negative emotions are found for a non-betrayer who commits an identical harm.