How Consumers' Political Ideology and Status-Maintenance Goals Interact to Shape Their Desire for Luxury Goods

Abstract

This research distinguishes between the goal of maintaining one's status from advancing one's status and investigates how consumers' political ideology triggers sensitivity to the status-maintenance (vs. status-advancement) goal, subsequently altering luxury consumption. Because conservative political ideology increases the preference for social stability, the authors propose that conservatives (vs. liberals) are more sensitive to status-maintenance (but not status-advancement) and thus exhibit a greater desire for luxury goods when the status-maintenance goal is activated. Six studies (N = 23,337) assessing status-maintenance using socio-demographic characteristics (Studies 1, 2, 3A) and controlled manipulations including ad framing (Study 3B) and semantic priming (Studies 4, 5) support this proposition. The studies show that the effect is specific to status-maintenance and does not occur (1) in the absence of a status goal or (2) when the status-advancement goal —a focus on increasing status—is activated. Overall, the results show that conservatives' desire for luxury goods stems from the goal of maintaining their status and offer insights on how luxury brands can effectively tailor their communication to audiences with a conservative ideology.