How do counselling organisations deal with the emotions of consumers who have experienced discrimination? This is the question addressed by the new working paper “Dealing with the emotions of discriminated persons in consumer counselling”, which was produced as part of the project DEVGAV – Discrimination, Emotions and Consumer Behaviour.
The qualitative study is based on an actor field analysis of 91 counselling organisations and 15 guideline-based expert interviews with counsellors from different market sectors, including housing, financial services, digital markets, healthcare, and cultural and leisure markets.
Three key findings emerge: First, discrimination is often not explicitly named in counselling conversations, but rather appears indirectly as part of other consumer concerns. Second, emotional recognition and fact-oriented counselling are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, seriously addressing emotions can be an important prerequisite for subsequently dealing with discrimination-related concerns in an effective and solution-oriented way. Third, the way counsellors deal with the emotions of discriminated consumers still depends heavily on the individual experience, skills and attitudes of the respective counsellor. Binding guidelines or training opportunities that systematically address discrimination and emotions together are still rarely established in consumer organisations. The study therefore points to a professionalisation gap and a protection gap in consumer counselling.
You can find the study results here.
More information about the project can be found here.