An Aversion to Intervention: How the Protestant Work Ethic Influences Preferences for Natural Healthcare

Abstract

The term “natural” is ubiquitous in advertising and branding, but limited research has investigated how consumers respond and relate to naturalness. Some researchers have documented preferences for natural products, specifically food, but there has been scant investigation of the psychological antecedents of such preferences, especially in the critical, multi-trillion dollar domain of healthcare. Using publicly available country-level data from 41 countries and individual-level experimental and survey data from the lab and online panels, we find converging evidence that consumers do indeed differ in their preferences for relatively natural versus artificial healthcare options. These differences are influenced by the extent to which they subscribe to the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE)—a belief system that influences judgments and behaviors across diverse domains—such that people who subscribe strongly (vs. weakly) to the PWE are more likely to prefer natural healthcare options, because they are more averse to external intervention in general. Further, belief in the PWE makes consumers more sensitive to the intrusiveness of an intervention than to its extent. Theoretical and substantive implications are discussed.