Agonistic Behaviour in Marketing: An Extended Abstract

Abstract

Scarcity is a fundamental aspect in life which is faced by all living organisms. Animals have to compete against each other for resources for survival. Interestingly, when competing, animals do not fight straight away but they are more likely to perform a certain behaviour to display their superiority. This social behaviour is referred to as agonistic behaviour. This behaviour can also be seen in human beings. Hence, this conceptual paper aims to extend the theory of agonistic behaviour from the discipline of biology and psychology into marketing context. The influence of different scarcity contexts towards consumers’ competition will be investigated. © 2017, Academy of Marketing Science.