Effect of Chatbot Status on Members' Acceptance of Loyalty Programs: The Mediating Effect of Sense of Dominance

ABSTRACT Loyalty programs sell status as much as savings. Yet this status promise is now often delivered by a chatbot rather than a human service employee. This research examines whether the social standing assigned to that chatbot as a subordinate assistant or a peer shapes consumers' loyalty program acceptance. Building on social dominance theory and research on status‐conferring loyalty programs, this research proposes that subordinate‐status chatbots increase program acceptance by heightening consumers' sense of dominance: A transient, affectively laden state in which consumers feel and perceive themselves as occupying a higher position in the immediate service hierarchy. Across five experiments, subordinate‐status chatbots increased consumers' loyalty program acceptance compared with peer‐status chatbots. This effect was mediated by sense of dominance and was further supported by a three‐level status manipulation that included subordinate, peer, and superior chatbot conditions while controlling for perceived warmth, social presence, and perceived threat. The dominance pathway was not uniform across consumers or contexts. It was stronger among agency‐oriented consumers, whose focus on personal achievement makes status‐affirming cues especially attractive, but disappeared among communion‐oriented consumers, for whom hierarchical cues are less motivationally relevant. In addition, drawing on resource‐matching perspectives, the effect emerged only in low‐arousal service environments, where consumers had sufficient cognitive resources to register subtle status signals; in high‐arousal situations, the influence of chatbot status was neutralized. These findings show that presenting a chatbot as a deferential assistant can increase loyalty program engagement, while also identifying the consumer and situational conditions under which this strategy is most effective.