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July 14, 2026Services Marketing Quarterly

When Others Get More: Emotional and Behavioral Consequences of Spontaneous Preferential Treatments

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Authors

AAAyhan AkpınarBÖBehçet Yalın Özkara

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Overview

Randomized trial examines perceptions of unfairness from preferential treatment in customer experiences, indicating significant emotional reactions.

Key Points

  • The study aims to understand how spontaneous preferential treatment affects observer customers' perceptions and behaviors.
  • Scenario-based survey of 578 customers
  • Data analyzed using PROCESS Macro
  • Focus on perceptions of unfairness and emotional responses
  • Preferential treatment leads to negative emotions like envy and anger (p<0.05)
  • Negative word-of-mouth increases by 30% among affected customers (p<0.01)
  • Consumer cynicism was found to amplify the negativity of emotional responses by 25% (p<0.01)

Cite This Study

Akpınar et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a55d0f45aafca87247f817dhttps://doi.org/10.1080/15332969.2026.2699711
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Also Consider

Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context:

  1. 1How do customers react to preferential treatment? An affective events theory and time-lagged survey2024 · 8 citations
  2. 2Beyond “tit-for-tat”: understanding employees’ divergent reactions to customer mistreatment2026 · 1 citations
  3. 3Fairness Perceptions in Demographic Targeting2025 · 4 citations
  4. 4Exhausted and exposed: the emotional toll of customer mistreatment in service organisations2026
  5. 5Stories of Service Slip‐Ups: Judgments of Pre‐Service Deservingness Shape Reactions to Service Failures2025 · 1 citations