The impact of product defect severity and product attachment on consumer negative emotions

Abstract Consumers often experience negative emotions when confronted with a product defect. This is especially true when the product is integrated into many aspects of the consumer's life, such as the case with automotive vehicles. In this research, we draw on the consumer expectations and attachment literature to explore the impact of defect severity and product attachment, operationalized via both ownership length/usage (mileage) and the psychological construct of object attachment, on the negative emotions consumers experience. Using sentiment analysis of archived data of consumers' complaints from the Defective Product Administrative Center in China and a controlled experiment among US consumers, we find that defect severity and mileage/attachment interact in a novel curvilinear manner to influence the amount of negative emotion consumers experience. When defect severity is low, our results indicate a U‐shape relationship between mileage/attachment and negative emotions. However, when defect severity is high, an inverted U‐shaped relationship emerges. Furthermore, we link the specific emotion of anger to consumers' downstream perceptions (loyalty, quality, satisfaction, and more) of their vehicle, manufacturer, and retailer.