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Reciprocity anxiety predicts important consumer behaviors, study suggests

2019-01-11

When a waiter warmly brings you drinks and recommends something for you, do you keep smiling but secretly hope him to leave me alone?

When your friends throw a surprise party for you or send you birthday presents, do you feel touched, whilst worrying about repaying the kindness?

In many cases, offering consumers favors generates positive effects in sales. However, to some, such practice arouses discomfort. A study shows that considerable individual differences exist in feeling anxious in situations that involve reciprocity, and reciprocity anxiety can predict important consumer behaviors. 

Researchers led by Prof. ZHOU Xinyue from the School of Management developed a “reciprocity anxiety” scale to measure differences in attitudes and perceptions of different people after receiving favors. Results from experiments indicate consumers with high reciprocity anxiety avoid receiving favors and tend to be more ready to reciprocate. Besides, providing excessive assistance to people with high reciprocity anxiety reduces their customer satisfaction with the retailer, decreases their willingness to revisit, and lessens their intention to spread positive word of mouth (WOM) for the retailer.

This is consistent with their prediction: If a person is anxious about reciprocal relationships, forcing them to establish such a relationship may not achieve the expected return. It is better to just let it go.

Their findings are published in the Journal of Economic Society.


If you are interested in the reciprocity anxiety scale, you can rate the following items on a five-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree” and 5 = “strongly agree”). Add the score of each item and divide the total score by 11 to see your average score. Average score of participants of the above study is 3.325.

 

Reciprocity Anxiety Scale

  • I’ll never ask for help if I don’t have to, to avoid owing others

  • Usually I don’t accept favors unless I am sure I can pay back all the favors quickly

  • One should not ask for a favor from a friend if he/she is unable to pay it back

  • I avoid asking for favors if I cannot repay the favor

  • When someone offers to help me, I usually reject it if I cannot rid myself of the debt through reciprocation

  • I hesitate to ask for help because then I don’t need to think about what I might give in return

  • When I receive favors from someone, I worry about how to repay them

  • I am often afraid that I cannot reciprocate favors in time

  • I worry about what people will think of me if I fail to reciprocate the favors I received from others

  • Sometimes I think I am too concerned with reciprocating the favors

  • I’m restless and on edge when I owe someone


Source: School of Management