Can a girl's best friend be born in a lab? the role of ritual in production process conservatism

Abstract

A number of studies suggest that people may care about the process by which a product is made, even when it is not associated with the quality of the product. A common example of this preference is "production-process conservatism," whereby consumers prefer products made via traditional practices rather than those made via new practices. However, it is not clear what mechanism drives such conservatism and it is difficult to rule out the possibility that it is due to differences in product quality. We focus on the context of diamond jewelry, where consumers have generally been resistant to diamonds that are identical to mined diamonds but are produced in a laboratory. We argue that this resistance derives from the use of a product in the performance of a social ritual, where deviation from the traditional rules of the ritual carries the risk that one will signal a lack of commitment or cultural competence. In particular, we expect consumers to be more resistant to lab-created diamonds when they buy diamond jewelry for an engagement gift, compared to when they buy diamond jewelry for a more routine gift. Our hypothesis is tested in a series of online experiments. The experiments provide evidence for our argument, and, in particular, females who ever married show the strongest resistance to labcreated diamonds in a ritual condition, compared to when they are in a gift-giving condition. We conclude by discussing theoretical implications of these findings and the mechanism underlying ritual reinforcement for future research. Keywords: production process, ritual, risk, symbol, engagement, lab-created diamond.