Research Seminar: The tiny Trump in all of us

Former U.S. President Donald Trump does not have a reputation for subtlety. His behavior has been called self-absorbed, even narcissistic, or rude and generally very impolite. A remarkable observation by many of his critics is that he treated interaction partners in politics and diplomacy in the same way as he has treated interactions as a businessman, exploiting his power in the relationship and always looking for short-term gain. The world looked with some disbelief and disdain at Trump’s unusual interpretation of the presidential role, but one may wonder whether there might be a tiny Trump in all of us, just waiting for some cue to trigger it. 

One such trigger, our research finds, might be the self-identification as a ‘customer’. As soon as we enter a situation in which we put on our proverbial ‘customer hat’, our interpersonal behavior seems to change. We become less polite, less emphatic, and we tend to look at our interaction partners as mere ‘means to an end’ rather than as individuals with their own rights and sensitivities. Our initial investigations into this phenomenon, using experimental studies, uncover how explicitly identifying as a customer facilitates dysfunctional behaviors such as impoliteness in service encounters. The study discovered that identifying as a customer increased our sentiments of entitlement and caused us to act less politely than when we identify ourselves with other identities (such as guests, volunteers, or students). The study also illustrates how our actions alter even when we are not conscious of them.

We are all customers, some of the time. Luckily, this does not mean that we literally revert to Trump-like behavior in all our commercial contacts.  Consider the Trump comparison as a metaphor for the mindset a customer role tends to activate. It helps us to understand a little better how customer identity may be associated with problematic customer behaviors, but a lot more needs to be studied.

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Luk Warlop Bio (from BI Norwegian Business School)

Luk Warlop is Professor of Marketing, Dean Research, and Dean PhD at BI Norwegian Business School. He obtained a master degree in (organizational) psychology (1986) and an MBA (1988) at KU Leuven, and a PhD in marketing (1995) at the University of Florida. He studies individual consumer decision making and the social psychology of consumer behavior. His research has been published in J. Consumer Research, J. Marketing Research, J. Consumer Psychology, Int. J. Research in Marketing, J. Accounting Research, Management Science, J. Service Research, J. Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, and several others. His work has been recognized with a best paper award (2000) and two long term impact awards (2013 and 2023) at the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM), and with an IgNobel Prize. He is currently a member of the Board of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, and the former president of the European Marketing Academy (2018-2021).