Consumer Reaction to Inequitable Exchange: The Role of CausaI Inferences.

The article investigates in three contexts the influence of causal attributions on consumers' reactions to inequitable exchange. It informs that the concept of equity has made its way into the field of marketing via social psychological models of consumer decision making. The rationale is that, inasmuch as consumer responses to inequitable treatment can have a negative, long-term effect on the success of an organization, the factors underlying such responses have to be understood. The influence of causal attributions on consumers' reactions to inequitable exchange was examined in three contexts: the level of distress perceived as a function of the degree of inequity; the moderating effect of consumer attributions on the inequity-distress relationship; and consumers' likely response as a function of their perceived locus of causality. Results based on a field experiment using 300 American women in a deceptive advertising setting, support the traditional distributive and procedural justice model but suggest that more complex (cognitive) paradigms are necessary to explain aggrieved consumers' interpretations of fairness by marketers.