Brand Attachment and Consumer Resilience to Negative Brand Information: A Neuroscientific and Behavioural Investigation in Lagos

This study investigates the neurological and behavioural mechanisms underlying brand attachment and consumer resilience to negative brand information in Lagos State, South West Nigeria, contributing an original neuro-behavioural theory of brand resilience to the consumer psychology and brand management literature. Brand resilience, the capacity of strong consumer-brand attachment relationships to withstand reputational shocks caused by negative publicity, product failures, or social controversy, has significant practical implications for brand crisis management. However, the neurological correlates of brand attachment and resilience remain largely unexplored, particularly in African consumer psychology contexts. Drawing on attachment theory, affective neuroscience, and the brand crisis resilience literature, the study constructs an original neuro-behavioural model proposing that brand attachment activates distinct neurological response patterns to negative brand information, mediated by identity fusion and emotional memory consolidation. A laboratory-based experimental design employs EEG, heart rate variability measurement, and implicit association testing with 160 brand-attached versus low-attachment consumers in Lagos, exposed to negative brand information stimuli. Traditional survey instruments supplement biometric data. Multivariate signal processing and structural modelling integrate neural and behavioural data streams. The study delivers pioneering neuroscientific evidence about brand attachment resilience mechanisms in a Nigerian consumer context, contributing both methodological innovation and original theoretical advances to the intersection of consumer neuroscience and brand crisis management. Keywords: brand attachment, consumer resilience, neuromarketing, brand crisis, Lagos