“I” value justice, but “we” value relationships: Self-construal effects on post-transgression consumer forgiveness

Causal attributions and brand-relationships are known to determine how consumers react to brand transgressions. Considering both transgression controllability and brand-relationship strength, the authors show that self-construal moderates consumer reactions to brand transgressions. Three studies using different product and service failure scenarios demonstrate that consumers who have independent self-construals are more forgiving when the brand has no control over the transgression, regardless of brand-relationship strength. However, consumers who have interdependent self-construals are more forgiving when they have strong relationships with the transgressing brand, even if the brand is at fault. Furthermore, the salience of justice concerns versus expectancies for long-term brand-relationships underlies the self-construal effects on consumer forgiveness.