Consumer cynicism: developing a scale to measure underlying attitudes influencing marketplace shaping and withdrawal behaviours

Abstract This article develops the construct of consumer cynicism, characterized by a perception of a pervasive, systemic lack of integrity in the marketplace and investigates how cynical consumers behave in the marketplace. The construct was developed based on a qualitative study and triangulated through developing a scale and investigating antecedents and consequential marketplace behaviours. The cynicism construct is uniquely suited to explain the underlying psychological processes hinted at in practitioner perceptions of the growing mistrust and consumer research about rebellion behaviours, as well as to offer insight on consumers’ response to the increasingly sophisticated market. Previous research has offered a glimpse of extreme rebellion behaviours such as culture jamming, anti‐market rallies and movements and anti‐consumerist festivals such as Burning Man explored through qualitative research. [Drawing audiences around 50 000 and running annually near San Francisco since 1986, the Burning Man festival lists decommodification among its 10 core principles, prohibits commercial sponsorships, exchange transactions and advertising, and culminates in burning a 40‐foot effigy of ‘the man’.] This research builds on that through both qualitative and quantitative approaches to empirically demonstrate that the cynical attitudes underlying such behaviours are widespread and have a subtle and pervasive effect on more everyday consumption behaviours as well as high‐profile activist behaviours. Cynical consumers see consumers (not just activists but also ordinary consumers) as players in a marketplace system, and they believe that role comes with the responsibility to make socially conscious choices. The consumer marketplace system is so pervasive that simple apathy or avoidance is rarely possible. Cynical consumers are forced to continually interact with a system they mistrust, and they use various coping strategies. The consumer cynicism construct was initially developed through a grounded theory study of in‐depth interviews. Interview analysis showed these consumers share a consistent, complex network of marketplace beliefs and negative affect, which shapes their behaviour in the marketplace. Based on the qualitative study, consumer cynicism is defined as a stable, learned attitude towards the marketplace characterized by the perception that pervasive opportunism among firms exists and that this opportunism creates a harmful consumer marketplace. A series of studies was conducted to develop a scale to measure consumer cynicism. A large‐scale national survey provided the final scale validation sample and primary research instrument for testing hypotheses, and additional studies were conducted for a rigorous scale development process, establishing internal consistency, invariant unidimensional factor structure, scale norms, test–retest reliability as well as face validity, known‐groups validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity and nomological validity. Consumer cynicism is shown to impact marketplace behaviours and perceptions, leading to marketplace shaping or consumer activism and criticism behaviours, and marketplace withdrawal behaviours such as voluntary simplicity lifestyles.