To dress up or not: Political identity and dog owners' purchase of dog apparels
研究发现保守派狗主人比自由派对狗穿衣服更反感，但更可能购买狗服装，原因是物种主义信念导致厌恶感和地位信号需求。
Abstract Dogs have become an essential part of many consumers' everyday lives as well as their purchase and consumption considerations. This research investigates dog owners' affective reactions (i.e., disgust) to dogs wearing clothes and their purchase of dog apparel influenced by owners' political identities. We find an interesting pattern where conservatives (relative to liberals) experience higher disgust for dogs wearing clothes but are more likely to purchase dog apparel. We propose that liberals and conservatives endorse different moral values leading to different human‐animal relationship beliefs, as reflected in speciesism (i.e., human superiority). Conservatives have higher speciesism beliefs, leading to both higher feelings of disgust and purchase of dog apparel due to status signaling. The effects are further moderated by the type of apparel, with a stronger effect for nonfunctional (vs. functional) clothes. In three studies, we surveyed dog owners and non‐owners and conducted an experiment to demonstrate these effects. We also provide managerial implications in terms of designing and marketing pet apparels.