Dartmouth College’s Nailya Ordabayeva and Arizona State University’s Monika Lisjak photographed the purchases of customers at a Boston farmers market and surveyed the shoppers about their political leanings. They rated each person’s items on aesthetics and mapped the results against the survey responses and found a correlation: Conservatives were more likely than liberals to have bought misshapen or blemished produce. Eight subsequent studies found a similar pattern with other goods. The conclusion: Conservatives are more open to seemingly inferior products than liberals are.
Conservatives Are More Open to Seemingly Inferior Products Than Liberals Are
They believe in balance—and so think obviously imperfect items must have hidden virtues.
Summary.
A new body of research shows that shoppers who lean to the right politically are more likely to buy goods with obvious flaws than shoppers who lean to the left. But it could be that the conservatives believe hidden positives will compensate for the items’ drawbacks.
A version of this article appeared in the May–June 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.