The Influence of Incidental Similarity on Observers’ Causal Attributions and Reactions to a Service Failure

Observers’ reactions to a service failure and their attributions of responsibility for its occurrence can depend on fortuitous characteristics of the protagonists that happen to draw their attention. Four field and laboratory experiments show that when observers have an incidental similarity to one of the persons involved in a service failure (the customer or the service provider), their attention is drawn to this protagonist, often leading them to construe the situation from this person’s perspective and consequently to blame the protagonist less for the negative event they observe. However, when an incidentally similar protagonist is rude or has an undesirable personal characteristic (i.e., obesity), observers’ greater attention to that person increases their attributions of responsibility to him or her rather than decreasing it. These opposing effects of incidental similarity on attributions influence not only observers’ evaluations of the persons involved in the situation they observe, but also their willingness to patronize the establishment. These effects occur both when observers actually witness a conflict offline and when they consider it online on the basis of reviews.