The Dark Side of Consumer–Brand Relationship: Do Ideal Self-Congruence, Brand Attachment and Personality Factors Affect Negative Consumer Behaviors?

The present study aims to investigate the effect of ideal self-congruence, brand attachment and some personality factors on the negative behaviors of consumers such as compulsive buying, anti-brand actions, and trash talking. The research population was comprised of customers of four IT service brands including Samsung, HP, Sony, and Apple in Iran. Structural equation modeling approach and PLS software were used to test the research hypotheses. The results indicated that ideal self-congruence had a significant positive effect on compulsive buying and trash talking. In addition, ideal self-congruence influenced the negative behaviors of consumers toward the brand through brand attachment. Neuroticism had a significant positive effect on compulsive buying and trash talking. However, conscientiousness only influenced trash talking and did not have any significant effect on compulsive buying. The results of this study show the negative behaviors toward brand. The recognition of negative aspects of the relationship between consumers and brands will help practitioners such as marketing managers with appropriate policy making of brand impression based on the characteristics of the target population. This paper has three key contributions. Since brand is one of the most important social factors, the evaluation of its effects on consumers has been considered by many researchers in recent years. However, studying the effects of branding on the negative behaviors of consumers is an under-researched issue. Studying the effect of neuroticism and conscientiousness as two personality characteristics on the negative behaviors toward brands is another neglected area.  The third contribution is evaluating the research model in an Eastern culture with specific characteristics and preferences of consumers which make their behaviors different from customers of other cultures such as European or American consumers.