When pain is pleasure: Identifying consumer psychopaths

In almost every product category, companies have incorporated the emergence of ethical and environmental consumerism into their business activities. Although ethical consumers are supposed to be concerned with a broad spectrum of ethical issues and demand that products and business practices meet their moral principles, a critical perspective supports the assumption that a dark side of consumer personality also exists. Consequently, the role of consumers has become a top priority, especially in the specific ascription of bright and dark personality traits when evaluating cruel business practices and unethical behavior. The paper aims to investigate whether anthropomorphic communication about cruel business tactics affects the formation of explicit and implicit brand attitudes and to shed light on the role of consumers’ personality traits in perceiving anthropomorphic cues and in forming brand attitudes. Referencing the Dark Triad of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy in relation to animal cruelty in the cosmetics industry, the results of an empirical study (N = 610) provide evidence that perceptions of brands or companies conducting cruel practices differ between consumers with more distinct Dark Triad traits and those with stronger empathetic traits.