When perspective-taking fails to inhibit customer aggression toward service employees

ABSTRACT

The current research proposed boundary conditions for the inhibiting effect of perspective-taking on customer aggression toward service employees. In Study 1, we recruited participants (N = 241) from Prolific and conducted an online survey. The results showed that the inhibiting role of perspective-taking appeared among people with low perceived economic mobility (PEM) but disappeared among those with high PEM. In Study 2, we recruited people (N = 241) from MTurk and tested whether self-other referent priming influences the aforementioned effect by conducting an online experiment randomly assigning participants to either a self- or other-referent priming condition. The results revealed that perspective-taking inhibited customer aggression more among people with low (vs. high) PEM in the self-referent priming condition, but in the other-referent priming condition, the inhibiting effect appeared more among people with high (vs. low) PEM. The current research provides practical implications to help service firms to inhibit customer aggression.

本研究为观点采择拟制消费者对服务人员表现攻击性的效果提出了边界条件(Boundary Conditions)。在研究一，我们从Prolific招募参与者(N = 241)进行网上调查。研究结果表明，在经济流动性认知能力(Perceived Economic Mobility, PEM)低的人群观点采择可有效拟制消费者攻击性，而在PEM高的人群效果消失。在研究二，我们在MTurk招募参与者(N = 241)，为验证自己或他人参照启动条件(self-other referent priming)对前述的效果是否有影响，参与人被随机安排在自己或他人参照启动条件下进行了网上实验。结果表明自己参照启动条件下，经济流动性认知能力低的人群比经济流动性认知能力高的人群观点采择拟制消费者攻击性的效果更高；但他人参照启动条件下，经济流动性认知能力高的人群比经济流动性认知能力低的人群观点采择更有效的拟制消费者攻击性。本研究为服务行业有效的拟制消费者攻击性提供实际意义。

KEYWORDS:

• Customer aggression
• perspective-taking
• perceived economic mobility
• self-other referent priming
• service employees

关键词:

• 消费者攻击性
• 观点采择
• 经济流动性认知能力
• 自己或他人参照启动
• 服务人员

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Institute of Management Research at Seoul National University.