An Analysis of Consumer Misbehavior on Black Friday
Date
2012-05
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Black Friday (BF), the day after Thanksgiving, is reported to be a day of both
extreme bargain shopping as well as one of the busiest shopping days of the year. BF
has become notorious in the media and general public for egregious consumer
behavior. Research regarding BF remains relatively new and a focus on consumer
misbehavior on BF is slowly growing. Utilizing two major theoretical perspectives
(General Aggression Model and Stimulus-Organism-Response Model), the goal of the
present research was intended to explore potentially influential personal and
situational factors that affect consumer behavior on BF. From a survey of BF
shoppers, in which four hypothetical BF scenarios were manipulated by two levels
(goal blockage or goal fulfillment), we found that public self-consciousness and self-control are negatively related to consumer misbehavior and that the behaviors of fellow consumers and goal blockage evoke negative emotions. We also found that negative emotions are positively related to consumer misbehavior. Our results support the General Aggression Model in explaining consumer misbehavior on BF.
Description
Keywords
Black Friday, consumer behavior