Religious Belief, Religious Priming, and Negative Word of Mouth

Abstract

This research examines the effects of religious belief and religious priming on negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) behavior. Drawing on social exchange and norm paradigms, the authors theorize and find evidence of the unique effects of religious belief and religious priming on NWOM in everyday service failure encounters. Specifically, they find that religious belief is associated with higher NWOM, driven by a greater sensitivity to violations of fairness norms, which in turn reduces forgiveness. However, exposure to religious priming attenuates NWOM among more religious consumers by reducing sensitivity to violations of fairness norms, which in turn enhances forgiveness. A field study involving over 1.2 million online reviews of actual restaurant experiences, in addition to four lab studies, provides support for the theorized effects. This study sheds light on the religion–forgiveness discrepancy by establishing the mediating role of sensitivity to fairness violations on the relationship between religion and forgiveness in the NWOM context. Further, the results demonstrate the importance of religion as a strategic variable in the management of service failure experiences, providing theoretical implications for the literature on the effects of religion on consumer behavior.