| Klein, Ettenson, and Morris' seminal consumer animosity study defined the construct of animosity as, "the remnants of antipathy related to previous or ongoing military, political, or economic events." Thus, this definition categorized consumer animosity into war-based or economic-based antecedents. The current research conceptualizes consumer animosity as the result of causal stories or focusing events. These focusing events bring a large amount of attention to an indiscretion, mobilizing groups in opposition to the offending party (whether that party be another nation, a firm, or political/activist group).;The importance of examining consumer animosity lies in both how animosity is developed and the consequences of the animosity. It is important to know what types of indiscretions, or focusing events, will lead to the use of consumer animosity in the decision to purchase products. Thus, the primary goal of this research is to uncover the link between types of focusing events and their effects on the development of consumer animosity.;By using the Stone categorization of focusing events we can better examine what types of indiscretions (whether the action was purposeful or unguided and the resulting consequence of the action was intended or unintended) lead to high levels of consumer animosity. Thus, the major contribution of this study is the inclusion of focusing events as the antecedent to consumer animosity. Along with focusing events, ego-involvement, dogmatism, ethnocentrism, and reference group influence are modeled as the antecedents to consumer animosity. Finally, we examine the effects of consumer animosity on purchase decisions. The results indicate that different types of focusing events lead to different levels of consumer animosity. The major finding is that those focusing events that contain a purposeful action with an intended consequence lead to the development of higher levels of consumer animosity than all other types of focusing events. The implication is that firms need to carefully control the consumer perception of the firm's involvement in a negative focusing event. |
