Experiencing Dehumanization, Seeking Uniqueness: The Effect of Organizational Dehumanization on Uniqueness‐Seeking Consumption

Experiencing Dehumanization, Seeking Uniqueness: The Effect of Organizational Dehumanization on Uniqueness‐Seeking Consumption

Summary

This paper treats organisational dehumanisation — feeling treated as mechanistic or replaceable — as an ontological threat to one’s sense of humanness. Across one preliminary survey and five experiments, the authors show that experiencing organisational dehumanisation increases consumers’ preference for uniqueness-seeking consumption. The effect is reduced when people have other coping routes (for example, charitable purchases) or when their sense of self is affirmed. Importantly, choosing unique products helps restore a person’s perceived humanness.

Key Points

• Organisational dehumanisation is conceptualised as a deep, identity-level (ontological) self-threat rather than a simple situational grievance.
• Survey and five studies collectively show organisational dehumanisation predicts and causes increases in uniqueness-seeking consumption.
• Alternative coping mechanisms (e.g. charitable consumption) and self-affirmation attenuate the shift toward uniqueness-seeking.
• Uniqueness-seeking consumption functions to restore perceived humanness after dehumanising experiences.
• Findings extend compensatory-consumption theory by adding ‘threat to humanness’ as a novel self-discrepancy with practical workplace and marketing implications.

Content summary

The authors begin by highlighting a gap: most compensatory consumption research looks at situational or functional threats, not chronic institutional ones. They operationalise organisational dehumanisation and measure its effects on consumer choices. Across methodologically varied studies (survey + experiments), they manipulate or measure perceived dehumanisation, then observe choices/preferences for unique versus conforming products. They also test moderators — charitable consumption and self-affirmation — and a final study shows that unique consumption actually helps people feel more human again. The paper ends with discussion on identity restoration and recommendations for workplace policy and marketing strategies.

Context and relevance

This research sits at the intersection of organisational psychology and consumer behaviour. As workplaces automate, monitor and optimise staff, perceptions of being ‘cogs in a machine’ are rising — and that shapes how employees behave as consumers. For marketers, the study signals that customers coming from dehumanising institutional contexts may respond strongly to uniqueness cues. For HR and leaders, it shows a downstream behavioural cost of dehumanising practices: employees may seek identity-restoring purchases, which has implications for wellbeing, retention and even corporate social responsibility programmes.

Why should I read this?

Short answer: because it explains why people buy odd, limited or bespoke stuff after being treated like a number. If you work in marketing, HR, or lead teams, this paper tells you how treatment at work leaks into shopping choices — and offers simple, tested ways (charity options, self-affirmation) to blunt the effect. We read it so you don’t have to spend hours digging through the experiments — the takeaways are neat and actionable.

Source

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mar.70034?af=R