Bargain-hunters dehumanize employees: UBC study

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Everyone can get excited about a bargain, especially on Christmas gifts, but shoppers who only care about price may be forgetting to spread the cheer to their fellowmen behind the counter.

A UBC Sauder School of Business study found bargain-hunters whose main goal is to save money and get the cheapest deal, tend to see employees as less human and use dehumanizing language in reviews.

“Just focusing on paying the lowest price, then they were much more likely to treat the employee poorly by giving them a bad rating,” study co-author Johannes Boegershausen said.

The study included putting people in several scenarios such as writing reviews for discount and high-end airliners and having them respond to photos of flight attendants wearing uniforms of those airlines. Another has people write reviews following a negative experience with a customer service representative.

Cheaper airline workers were seen in a poorer light while bargain-hunting reviewers were 18 per cent more likely to give a rating that could lead to disciplinary action against the employee.

While we subconsciously remember other humans are capable of thinking and planning, we forget they also have feelings, Boegershausen said.

“Everybody can be cheapos sometimes and in that moment we should be careful how we treat others, especially employees,” he said.

Forgetting this can have negative consequences for employees who may  experience emotional exhaustion, job dissatisfaction, and burnout, resulting in poorer performance and more unhappy customers.

“We as customers, when we go to the store, we are price conscious. It doesn’t take much to recognize everyone as human and treat them in a considerable way and maybe for the holiday season that’s one of the nice takeaways,” Boegershausen said.

He hopes the study will prompt people to reflect on how they treat employees and for employers to help their workers.

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