Consumer Complaining Behavior, Imagined Interactions, and Communication Traits: Cognitive Processing Following an Organizational Failure

This study examined the use of imagined interactions following the violation of consumers' expectations operationalized as organizational failures. Communication-based personality traits were also examined with respect to consumer complaining behavior and the use of imagined interactions. Participants were 235 people exposed to a hypothetical organizational failure involving violated expectations for a hotel reservation. The results indicate that people do use imagined interactions to help process organizational failures and that they are more likely to do so for rehearsal and self-awareness functions than for cathartic purposes. Moreover, several communication-based personality traits (e.g., argumentativeness, blirtatiousness, verbal aggressiveness, and communication apprehension) are significantly associated with imagined interactions and measures of complaining behavior.