Abstract

Companies increasingly take a stance for the LGBTQIA* community. However, consumers often criticize the appropriation of this support for economic reasons, also called rainbowwashing. Building upon corporate hypocrisy and greenwashing research, we investigate under which circumstances participants perceive an ad as rainbowwashing in two experiments. In Study 1, we test the effects of claims (vague vs. concrete vs. no claim) and emotional imagery (imagery vs. no imagery). In Study 2, we replicate this design (comparing vague vs. concrete claims and imagery vs. no imagery). Results from Study 1 show that reading a vague claim elicited the highest perceptions of rainbowwashing compared to reading no or a concrete claim. Images did not show a main effect. In Study 2, claim vagueness had no direct effect, whereas imagery had a direct impact on perceived rainbowwashing. In both studies, involvement with LGBTQIA* issues was a significant moderator for the effect of imagery, so that highly involved individuals perceived less rainbowwashing when emotional and imagery was included. We discuss these findings in light of personal characteristics for the perception of rainbowwashing and draw conclusions for individual factors for the broader field of corporate hypocrisy.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2022.2053393 .

摘要

公司越来越多地为 LGBTQIA* 社区采取立场。然而，消费者经常批评出于经济原因而挪用这种支持，也称为 rainbowwashing。基于企业伪善和漂绿研究，我们在两个实验中调查参与者在何种情况下将广告视为彩虹漂洗。在研究 1 中，我们测试了声明（模糊与具体与无声明）和情感意象（意象与无意象）的影响。在研究 2 中，我们复制了这个设计（比较模糊与具体的声明以及图像与无图像）。研究 1 的结果表明，与阅读没有或具体的声明相比，阅读模糊的声明会引发最高的 rainbowwashing 认知。图像没有显示主效应。在研究 2 中，声明模糊性没有直接影响，而图像对感知的彩虹洗涤有直接影响。在这两项研究中，参与 LGBTQIA* 问题是意象效果的重要调节因素，因此当情感和意象被包括在内时，高度参与的个体感知到较少的彩虹清洗。我们根据对 rainbowwashing 的个人特征讨论这些发现，并针对更广泛的企业虚伪领域的个人因素得出结论。

本文的补充数据可在 https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2022.2053393 在线获取。