When Does Psychological Fit Matter? The Moderating Role of Price on Self-Brand Congruity

In brief

People buy brands that feel like them, but mainly when the brand is expensive. In 17,000 bank transactions and two experiments, the self-brand congruity effect held for high-priced brands and vanished for cheap ones: when more money is at stake, a personality-matched brand reduces worries about regretting the purchase.

Abstract

People prefer brands whose perceived image reflects their own psychological profile, a finding referred to as the self-brand congruity effect. For the first time, we test this effect in the field by utilizing over 17,000 real bank transaction records (Study 1, N = 405). We demonstrate that the strength of self-brand congruity is related to the financial resources a person must spend to acquire the brand, such that the effect holds only when the brand being purchased has a high (vs. low) price. We conceptually replicate the effect (Study 2, N = 354) and provide causal evidence through an experiment (Study 3, N = 404), manipulating price and brand personality while holding other brand attributes constant. We also provide evidence for one psychological mechanism underlying why price moderates self-brand congruity, finding personality-matched brands elicit fewer concerns about postpurchase regret, a bigger risk for high-price brands (Study 4, N = 300).

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PDF · Published version (DOI) · Data and code (OSF) · More on spending and personality