Feeling Entitled Because of Who You Are

Consumer behavior is driven in part by feelings of entitlement. Particularly when selecting goods and services that are not necessities, consumers may reward themselves with particularly desirable selections to the extent that they feel deserving. Although entitlement beliefs may therefore play an important role in consumption behavior, these beliefs are also associated with negative outcomes like acting selfishly in ways that take a toll on others (e.g., Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline, & Bushman, 2004; Fisk, 2010; Harvey & Martinko, 2009; Moeller, Crocker, & Bushman, 2009). The goal of the current research was to aid in understanding the source of entitlement beliefs. Lerner (1991) defined entitlement as “the judgment, often tacit, that someone, or some category of people, is entitled to a particular set of outcomes by virtue of who they are or what they have done” (italics added; p. 13). Who people are, or their attributes, include personal characteristics like being smart, a hard worker, and experienced in a given area; what people have done, or their actions, are behaviors like having earned a degree from a prestigious university and working a 60-hour week. A pre-study supported our supposition that people see others as entitled to desirable outcomes to the extent that those others emphasize their actions rather than their attributes. We predicted, however, that this would not apply when people thought about their own entitlement. Instead, people should feel more entitled to desirable outcomes when they think about who they are than when they think about what they have done.