From Brand Authenticity to Loyalty: A Serial Mediation Through Risk Aversion, Discipline, and Brand Trust

Abstract This study examines how perceived brand authenticity translates into brand loyalty through a multi-stage psychological process that has remained largely unexplored in the literature. Building on a theoretical framework, a model is proposed in which authenticity is linked to loyalty serially through risk aversion, discipline, and brand trust. Data were collected via an online survey from 467 consumers in Turkey within the automobile category, a high-involvement consumption context. The sample consists of private security personnel, as this is an occupational group in which the mediating constructs of risk aversion and discipline can be observed in a particularly salient way. The measurement and structural models were estimated using structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation, and the indirect effects were tested with 5,000 bootstrap samples. The measurement model demonstrated adequate reliability as well as convergent and discriminant validity. The findings support all of the proposed paths. Brand authenticity positively affects risk aversion, risk aversion positively affects discipline, discipline positively affects brand trust, and brand trust positively affects brand loyalty. The direct effect of authenticity on loyalty is also significant; meanwhile, the chain running from authenticity to loyalty through risk aversion, discipline, and brand trust is significant, indicating partial serial mediation. Because the direct effect is clearly dominant, the indirect path accounts for only a limited share of the total effect. By explaining the authenticity-loyalty relationship not through a single mediator but through a multi-stage mechanism that integrates risk assessment, self-regulation, and trust processes, the study offers an original theoretical contribution that bridges the marketing and personality psychology literatures.