University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Business & Economics
Can doing good make you do bad?
The Willingness to pay for Ethical Products
and the role of Moral Self Licensing
Isabelle Parqui (11417048)
MSc Business Administration,
Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Supervisor: Joeri Sol
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Isabelle Parqui who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the
supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
This thesis investigates the willingness to pay for ethical consumption choices. If a product improves on one morally significant aspect, people may simply care less about other entirely unrelated ethical dimensions of the product. This defines the well-established concept called moral self-licensing. However, there are many highly recognized psychological theories such as consistency that contradict it. This study therefore replicates Engel & Szech’s (2015) research on moral licensing to see whether this effect truly exists. The final results show that moral self-licensing does not take place, neither statically nor over time.
Table of Content
Introduction p. 4-8
Problem Definition and Research Objective p. 9
Theoretical Background p. 9-13
Moral Self-licensing p. 9-10
Moral Self-Licensing and Selfishness p. 10-12
Moral Self-Licensing and Ethical Consumption p. 12-13
Method p.14-20
Measuring Moral Self-Licensing p. 14-15
Population, Sample and Data Collection p. 15-16
Measurement of Variables p. 16-19 Willingness to Pay p. 16-18 Control Variables p. 18-19 Willingness to Donate p. 19-20 Hypothesis p. 20-21 Results p. 21-28 Willingness to Pay p. 21-23 Willingness to Donate p. 23-24
Willingness to Pay across the other Independent Variables p. 25-26 Willingness to Donate across the other Independent Variables p. 27-28
Conclusion p. 28-29
Limitations p. 29-31
Discussion p. 31-35
References p. 36-41
Appendix I: Survey p. 42-49
Appendix II: Measurement Scales p. 50-51
Introduction
Consumers today have become increasingly aware of social and ethical aspects of consumption (Mazar & Zhong, 2010). This new information age where people can access content anywhere and anytime has allowed consumers to become highly informed about products, essentially changing the way we consume. Global warming has become a very urgent issue of today due to the burning of fossil fuels, the rise in population and our ineffective use of finite resources. It is therefore imperative that we reduce our ecological footprint by altering the way we produce and consume goods for the achievement of economic growth and sustainable development (UNDP, 2018). This thesis will therefore have a focus on ethical consumption, in
particular eco-friendly packaging, organic, and cruelty free certification.
Eco-friendly packaging is of particular importance as conventional packaging is one of the largest forms of pollution that is destroying our planet and contributing to climate change. The resilience of plastic means that it does not naturally biodegrade and can remain in our eco-system for hundreds of years (UNDP, 2018). It eventually breaks down into toxic micro-plastics that is ingested by aquatic species and ends up in the entire food-chain. While every year Americans discard more than 30 billion kg of plastic, only 8 percent of it actually becomes recycled (Plastic Pollution Coalition, 2018). Most of it ends up in landfills where harmful
chemicals leak into groundwater and flow into lakes and rivers and into our water supply. Moreover, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a 1.6 million km2 mass of plastic waste in our ocean, three times the size of France. The effect of so much plastic waste in the sea is harmful to marine life, to humans, and above all, the planet. The UN Environment estimates the economic cost of approximately 11 billion euros per year, involving clean-up expenses and financial losses of fisheries and other industries (Plastic Pollution Coalition, 2018).
These issues associated with pollution, C02 emissions and the exposure and consumption of toxic chemicals also affects our health (UNDP, 2018). As consumers become increasingly more aware, the demand for environmentally-friendly organic products without the use of harmful fertilizers, chemicals and preservatives also rises. The consumption of these chemicals is connected to cancers, birth defects, weakened immune system, endocrine disruption and other conditions (Plastic Pollution Coalition, 2018). For sustainable growth and development, we must reduce the natural resources and harmful materials used, as well as the waste created, through the whole production and consumption process. Ethical consumption can therefore be a powerful tool for change.Public opinion and consumer power have proven to be driving forces in prompting corporate conduct and legislative initiatives. If we change our habits and stop
consuming products that have a negative impact, then companies will also have to adjust. Ethical consumption also includes products with cruelty-free certifications that support animal welfare. Consumer demand for cruelty free cosmetics has increased, triggering many cosmetic companies to stop the use of animal testing. Still, more than 115 million animals worldwide are currently being used for animal testing (Peta, 2018). These animals are not only limited to tiny cages and cruel conditions, but they are also tortured, mutilated, blinded, and killed.
This amplified feeling of concern and social responsibility has led to a notable progress in the global market for eco-friendly and sustainable products (Mazar & Zhong, 2010). Within ethical consumerism lies the notion that buying choices express not just price and preferences (Monroe, 1976), but also values, norms and beliefs (Caruana, 2007; Irwin &Baron, 2001). Many consumers state that they indeed value ethical aspects of products, and that they are also willing to pay more for them (Cowe & Williams, 2000). Some brands, such as Ecover, a Belgian brand for cleaning products, aim for a holistic approach. They make biological and cruelty-free
products using clean sourcing and ingredients, recycled packaging, all while minimizing their carbon foot-print as they try to achieve a zero waste business model by 2020 (Ecover, 2018). Yet most businesses tend to emphasize one specific ethical aspect of their products, and stay quiet about others.
For companies it is probably easier and certainly less costly to concentrate on one ethical dimension, rather than improving all ethical facets of their products at once (Zsolnai, 2016). It is also probable that some dimensions such as eco-friendly packaging are easier to tackle than other aspects like the total environmental impact. Another motive for businesses to improve only on one ethical dimension could be that they already cater to consumers moral interests very well by doing so. Perhaps, for consumers, satisfying one ethical facet is sufficient to relieve their ethical conscience when purchasing a product (Engel & Szech, 2017). If so, the necessity to increase other ethical aspects may be relatively irrelevant for businesses as soon as they tackle one dimension.
Moral self-licensing explains this concept, where engaging in one ethical action makes individuals feel as though they are able to compensate later on by engaging in a less ethical action (Cremer, 2009). For instance, while individuals may help someone in need early in the day, they may feel justified to decline a donation to charity later in the evening as they feel as though they have already done their share. Another example is an experiment by Mazar and Zhong (2010), where people who shopped in a store comprising of mostly sustainable products shared less money and had a higher chance of cheating and stealing than those who went shopping in a conventional store. To date, a large body of research has been published on moral-self licensing. Since the first moral self-licensing research in 2001 (Monin & Miller), more than 95 studies have been published. In fact, moral self-licensing has been found in numerous fields, such as job hiring (Cascio & Plant, 2015), deceitful conduct (Jordan, Mullen, & Murnighan, 2011), racist behavior
(Effron, Cameron, & Monin, 2009; Effron, Miller, & Monin, 2012), charity donations (Sachdeva, Iliev, & Medin, 2009), and of course consumer behavior (Khan & Dhar, 2006).
Yet, the concept of moral self-licensing seems to clash with several well-established psychological theories related to consistency, self-concept and social responsibility. This thesis will therefore delve deeper into the concept of moral-self licensing in terms of products with ethical attributes. Since fundamental theories in psychology essentially go against the concept of moral self-licensing, it is important to re-assess this phenomenon. Firstly, it contradicts the idea of consistency as motivation in human behavior (Blanken, Ven, & Zeelenberg, 2015). For instance, self-perception theory proclaims that individuals infer their attitudes from
interpretations of their own behavior, which affects their subsequent actions (Bem, 1972). After accomplishing a good deed, one would therefore see themselves as being a moral person, instigating future moral behavior as well. Furthermore, balance theory (Heider, 1977), cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 2009), the sunk cost effect (Arkes & Blumer, 1985), and the foot-in-the-door theory (Freedman & Fraser, 1974), also emphasize consistency as crucial behavioral influences. These central psychological theories hereby state that we as individuals like to be and appear ethical, particularly when previous moral behavior has just been emphasized, as we find it important to be consistent.
Moral self-licensing also contradicts the notion of ethical consumption as a form of individual responsibility for the concern of society (Mazar and Zhong, 2010). While studies on ethical consumption assert that individuals often use daily consistent behavior to drive larger social or political change, Engel and Szech (2017) found that if a product improves on one ethical dimension, individuals care less about other, unrelated ethical aspects. It could be contended here that while we push for societal change through our consumption habits, we only do so for certain aspects we relate to or care about most. Though ethical consumption is supposed to be motivated
by social responsibility (Halkier, 2004), moral self-licensing claims that ethical consumption may essentially lessen it.
Furthermore, findings from Young, Chakroff, and Tom (2012) show that achieving moral deeds can lead to more good as motivations lie in their self-concept. It is therefore not always the case that after demonstrating ethical actions, people feel licensed to perform less desirably. When individuals are primed to see themselves as moral beings, conscious access to this positive self-worth should strengthen subsequent ethical behavior. Young et al. (2012) found that when members had to recall their moral actions (positive self-concept), their donations to charity were almost double compared to the participants who were reminded of their bad deeds, consistent with the concept of moral reinforcement.
In sum, while several studies have been published on moral self-licensing, there are however established psychological theories in self-concept, consistency and social responsibility that oppose it. Moreover, there is almost no research conducted on when moral self-licensing does not take place. This is partly because there is an over-reporting of successful moral self-licensing, and non-significant results are often looked upon as less superior in literature (Pigott et al., 2013). As moral self-licensing research seems to have negative effects for a wide range of fields, studying this in terms of ethical consumption can give essential insights into people’s behavior. Given these challenges and different views, this study will re-assess moral self-licensing when people participate in ethical consumption. The importance of minimizing our negative footprint on the environment by changing the way we produce and consume goods for the survival of the economy and our planet, means that looking into motivations behind ethical consumption is necessary. This study will specifically look at the ethical aspects of organic products, eco-friendly packaging and animal cruelty to better understand peoples purchasing intentions.
Problem Definition & Research Objective
This research will examine the effects of moral self-licensing across different ethical aspects in purchase decisions. To measure moral self-licensing, subjects are asked about their willingness to pay for an added certification to the products (either eco-friendly packaging or cruelty-free certification), followed by an opportunity to donate to charity. Furthermore, this study looks at whether personality, specifically the Big Five Inventory (Rammstedt and John 2005), relates to ethical consumption and moral self-licensing. This study will investigate;
“What is the willingness to pay and the role of Moral Self Licensing for Ethical products”
Theoretical Background Moral Self-licensing
Moral self-licensing suggests that individuals who initially act in an ethical manner, later act less morally, unethically, or problematic. Moral self-licensing is essentially a concept of
compensatory behavior. The idea behind moral self-licensing is that the previous moral deed offers a license that allows themselves to execute morally questionable behavior later on, either by disengaging from moral behavior or by doing something that is deliberately immoral (Merritt, Effron and Monin, 2010). Within this theory lies the concept that humans have a strong need to be moral, though doing so comes with a cost (Monin and Jordan, 2009). Consequently, they are frequently confronted with a balancing act amongst wanting to do good, but unwilling to pay for the real costs related to doing good (Sachdeva et al., 2009). Consequently, people may attempt to avoid paying for this cost at the next occasion, or they may feel that they should reward
themselves for having completed a good deed by doing something sinful, or less moral. If this trade-off exists amongst being ethical, paying the costs and rewarding yourself, the moral deed is then determined by previous behavior. Higgins (1996) claimed that people have an ideal moral
self-image that is used as a benchmark for judging their present moral level. After someone has accomplished a good deed, their moral self-image exceeds their ideal, making them feel entitled to lower their ethical strivings and disengage from future good behavior.
Moral self-licensing was first introduced by Monin and Miller (2001) in terms of sexism and racism in two experiments. They discovered that men who disagreed with obviously sexist statements were later more likely to favor a man for a stereotypical male occupation than those who didn’t. In the second experiment, they found that participants that proved themselves as not racist were more likely to recruit Whites instead of African Americans for a job in the police force.
Moral Self-Licensing and Selfishness
In another context, research has looked at how moral self-licensing can trigger selfish behavior. Individuals whose former good deeds are fresh in their head may feel less inclined to donate to charity compared to those that don’t have such reassuring memories. For example, Sachdeva et al. (2009) discovered that participants who were requested to write optimistic stories about their good deeds in the past were afterwards more selfish when it came to donating to charity. When participants did the same exercise but had to write about someone else, there was no significant difference in donation amount which highly proposes that the licensing process involves the self rather than just the priming of ethical words.
Likewise, Jordan et al. (2011) discovered that individuals who wrote about their previous ethical behavior had lower intentions to participate in prosocial activities (charity donation, offering blood, volunteering) than individuals who recalled immoral behavior. In their second experiment, subjects who recalled a previous ethical deed had a higher likelihood of cheating on
a math test than those who recalled an immoral deed. Hence, it appears that moral self-licensing does not only reduce prosocial incentives, but also encourages bad behavior.
Reciting personal ethical stories as well as acting morally has the ability to license immoral behavior. However, it seems that just imagining assisting others can also encourage the licensing effect. Kahn and Dhar (2006) found in their study that subjects who simply pictured volunteering to assist a foreign student, donated considerably less of their 2 dollar compensation than those who did not. This shows that individuals whose moral self-worth is enhanced, are more likely to reduce their prosocial behavior in the future.
Selfishness can also be an outcome of not being able to live up to one’s individual standards. Tanner and Carlson (2009) discovered that when individuals have the opportunity to justify what they would do in an ideal world, they consequently report lower on their real world objectives. When subjects were asked to state the likelihood that they would donate blood in an ideal world, it licensed them to make much lower probabilities of donating blood in reality, than those who were only inquired about the real world. This means that individuals usually use estimates of their ideal behavior when answering questions about their intentions, unless they have the opportunity to first state what they would ideally do.
Another interrelated theory from behavioral economics is conscience accounting. In the first part of the experiment conducted by Gneezy (2014), participants could lie to increase their revenue at the cost of their team players. In the second part of the experiment, participants had the chance to donate to charity. They found that donations were considerably higher among those who lied compared to those who didn’t. This means that by donating, participants compensate for previous unethical actions. Moreover, the donations received by the liars was significantly
reduced the more time there was in-between the two experiments. An explanation could be that the recalling of one’s immoral behavior weakens over time.
Thus, while atoning for past moral violations exists, actual moral actions, recalling and imagining good deeds, as well as stating what one would ideally do, can be sufficient to lower prosocial motivation and encourage selfishness.
Moral Self-Licensing and Ethical Consumption
Consumer choice is another area in which moral self-licensing takes place. People often choose products that fulfil their personal political and ethical motivations (Halkier, 2004). These consumers are concerned with the consequences that a purchasing decision has, not only for themselves, but also for the world around them (Clouder & Harrison, 2005). They consider the products they purchase as fundamentally linked to wider global problems such as the damage to the environment, climate change, and the working conditions of workers (Scholz, 2011). These political consumers use their daily shopping choices to tackle environmental, social or political issues that they find significant.
Eskine (2012) explored moral self-licensing during ethical consumption and found that subjects who simply observed pictures of organic food volunteered less time for a research project than participants that viewed regular food. In terms of managerial implications, one way to avoid the negative effects of moral self-licensing would be to alter ethical actions that take a lot of effort or that come with a high cost, and frame them as routine or standard behaviors. Actions such as recycling that may initially be inconvenient become easier when they are adapted into routines (Dahlstrand & Biel, 1997). Products or actions that are framed or marketed as something habitual or normal may in fact reduce the licensing effect by minimizing its ethical value into something that is expected. This automatic behavior may therefore reduce the effects of moral self-licensing. Similarly, interventions intended to stimulate ethical and healthy behavior should also not undervalue the influence of temptation. For example, when consumers are enticed
to participate in unhealthy actions, defending their behavior through previous good deeds should be more challenging. Health specialists and managers can thus use descriptive norms (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990) to show the public that healthy behaviors, like doing exercise and consuming fruits are normal rather than good, such as; “60% of the population regularly purchases organic products”. In this manner, the good or ethical action loses or reduces its licensing capabilities, making it harder to validate the unfavorable behavior.
Moreover, purchasing luxury products is related to feelings of guilt and self-indulgence (Dahl, Honea, & Manchanda, 2005). In terms of self-licensing, those whose past shopping behaviors were ethically reasonable in terms of spending, are more likely to indulge in luxury buying later on. When Khan and Dhar (2006) asked their participants to hypothetically choose between purchasing a luxury product versus a necessity product such as a vacuum cleaner, those who were first asked to envision doing something selfless were more likely to choose the luxury item.
Another study that supports moral-self licensing during ethical consumerism is by Mazar and Zhong (2010), who looked at the self-licensing effect on eco-friendly behavior. Subjects chose products from a collection that comprised of either mainly green products such as an energy efficient light bulb, or mostly conventional options. They discovered that individuals who shopped in a store with mostly ethical products shared less money in an anonymous game, had a higher chance of cheating, and also took more reimbursement compared to those who went shopping in a regular store. Contrary to the studies mentioned earlier; Effron et al. 2009 and Sachdeva et al. 2009, simply observing the mostly green collection without making a choice did not lead to the sameresults. Environmentally friendly behavior made subjects confident in their moral compass, licensing them to act unethically in other circumstances that were unrelated to the environment.
Method
This research will use an Experimental Survey Design using quantitative method, by replicating the study of Engel and Szech (2017) with a few variations. It used a structured questionnaire made through Qualtrics and was administered digitally. This research examined the effects of moral self-licensing across different ethical aspects in purchase decisions within the food and cosmetic industry. Respondents rate their willingness to pay for products, followed by an opportunity to donate part of their hypothetical prize of 50 euro to a good cause. This between subjects experiment has two treatments: Products Baseline, Products Organic. In these treatments, respondents rate their willingness to pay for ethically different products. Firstly, the products are either conventional (Products Baseline) or organic (Products Organic). Secondly, subjects are asked about their willingness to pay for an added certification to the product, either eco-friendly packaging or cruelty-free, in both treatments. The different product types within the treatments are included as a robustness check. The a priori expectation is that product type does not interact with certification (cruelty free or eco-friendly packaging) nor treatment effect. All respondents receive an explanation in the survey on what products certified as organic and eco-friendly packaging entails and how they differ from conventional products.In contrast, the original study from Engel and Szech (2017) elicit participants willingness to pay for enhanced manufacturing standards and focused on the textile industry.
Measuring Moral Self-Licensing
To measure static moral self-licensing within product decisions, participants assign willingness to pay for eco-friendly packaging and cruelty-free certification. In the Products Organic treatment, respondents understand that the products already accomplish another independent, ethically relevant standard by being organic. Therefore, adding supplementary ethical certifications to the
organic products should produce a lower willingness to pay. Moral self-licensing would thus occur if participants assign a lower willingness to pay for the products in Products Organic compared to Products Baseline. Then, to measure moral self-licensing over time, participants assign their willingness to donate to charity at the end of the survey. Both variables willingness to pay and willingness to donate measure some sort of ethical behavior. Willingness to pay for products is directly related to the fact that there is an added ethical dimension present (eco-packaging or cruelty-free certificates) and willingness to donate measures general moral
behavior, parallel to the Engel & Szech study. Willingness to pay therefore measures static moral self-licensing while willingness to donate measures moral self-licensing over time.
Table 1: Treatment Groups
Population, sample and data collection
This research has been conducted using non-probability convenience sampling to be able to collect a large amount of data in a short period of time and at low costs. Moreover, Engel & Szech (2017) used the same method and also went for a student population. The respondents were reached through email, WhatsApp and Facebook. A total of 173 respondents took the survey within two weeks, however 36 of those were incomplete and therefore taken out of the analysis. The total number of completed and valid surveys used in this research is therefore 137.
Treatments Type of product Certification
Group 1: Products Organic Organic Shower Gel Cruelty-free
Organic Juice Eco-packaging
Group 2: Products Baseline Non-organic Shower Gel Cruelty-free
All participants were informed on the first page of the survey that their contribution was
voluntary and anonymous. Participants were drawn from a big population comprised of all types of consumers, irrespective of demographic characteristics such as age, gender or nationality.
Measurement of Variables Willingness to Pay
Willingness to pay is the independent variable, while all the other control variables are dependent. The two products that were used for this experiment were shower gel and orange juice. Products were chosen based on popular daily use products that both male and females would use from brands that are not sold in the Netherlands, so that there is a lower chance of selection bias based on previous purchase history and preference for brands. For both treatments the ethical dimension which was added to Shower Gel was the cruelty-free certification for no animal testing. The ethical dimension added to the product juice was eco-friendly packaging. On the next page in Figure 1, an example of the survey for the Products Organic treatment for the product Shower Gel is shown. Products Baseline was comparable, except that the cosmetic products were conventional rather than organic. The base prices have been constructed to
represent an approximate average price for that product segment in the market (middle segment), while the increased price of the product that includes an ethical dimension represented an average of the higher segmented pricing for that specific product in the Netherlands.
Figure 1: Product Organic Treatment (organic shower-gel)
In this research, the 30% discount, which is the lowest price increase in comparison to the same product without the certification, is used as the willingness to pay for the certification. The higher the discount, the less the subject cares about the certification.
In the original study by Engel and Szech (2017), a multiple price list was used to asses participants willingness to pay for products with an additional ethical certification. The principal benefit of this format is that it is reasonably transparent to participants and offers modest
incentives for truthful exposure. However the disadvantages are that it only provokes interval responses, and is vulnerable to the effects of framing (Andersen, Harrison, Lau, & Rutström, 2008). As this current thesis was done through an online survey it was more suitable to use the discount format as explained above. The multiple price list format also has numerous options and there was a worry that it could cause too much confusion for participants. Furthermore, rather than the use of multiple modest incentives used in a multiple price list format, which would have been too complex to distribute, one participant was selected to win the prize of 50 euro. Furthermore, Engel and Szech (2017) used Belief treatments to assess whether outside participants would be aware of the effects of moral self-licensing. However the benefits of this were unclear and for the execution of this thesis it was decided to leave this group out.
Control Variables
Results of this research and for both treatments (Products Organic and Products Baseline) are controlled using five variables; age, gender, education, socio-economic background and Big Five Inventory personality traits. All these variables are dependent variables. Age was measured as an open question. Gender was measured with a multiple choice question of either male or female. Educational background was measured with a four-item multiple choice question concerning the respondent’s highest completed education. Socio-economic background was measured using 3 items from Griskevicius et al., (2011) with questions such as; ‘I have enough money to buy things I want’ measured on a five-point rating scale, where (1) stands for ‘strongly disagree’ and (5) stands for ‘strongly agree’.
The Big Five Inventory for controlling personality traits was used to study the interactions between ethical consumption, personality as well as moral self-licensing. While the original study from Engel & Szech (2017) additionally uses the Mach-IV test for Machiavellianism (Christie
and Geis, 1970) and the new Preference Survey Module (Armin et al. 2016) as supplementary personality measures, I have chosen to leave them out as the questionnaire of now 30 questions would otherwise exceed 30 minutes, meaning that the response rate would be much lower and the likelihood of people cutting off mid-survey would also increase. The questionnaire for the Big Five Inventory is measured on a five-point rating scale, where (1) stands for ‘strongly disagree’ and (5) stands for ‘strongly agree’. In total there are 21 items. See Appendix II for the complete scales. The Big Five Inventory from Rammstedt and John (2005) consists of five personality traits; Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness. Extraversion consists of four items, one of the items being; “I see myself as someone who has few artistic interests” measured in reverse. Agreeableness had four items, one being; “I see myself as someone who is generally trusting.” Conscientiousness also consisted of four items, e.g. “I see myself as someone who does a thorough job.” Neuroticism was also measured using four items, such as “I see myself as someone who gets nervous easily.” The final personality trait, Openness, had five items in total, one being “I see myself as someone who has an active imagination.”
Willingness to Donate
For the willingness to donate, the original question by Engel & Szech’s (2017) study was adapted using a combination of Lee & Lim’s (2010) scale. For this dependent variable, participants are asked what percentage they would be willing to donate rather than a yes/no question to increase variation and for more significant results. For efficiency and personal monetary purposes, rather than giving each participant a show up fee of 2 euro which would be difficult to administer through a survey, one person will be selected to win 50 euro. To administer the prize to the individual, they will be asked to share their email solely for this purpose and nothing else. The questions was: “As mentioned previously, by participating in this study you have the chance of
winning 50 euro. If you are picked as a winner, what percentage of your prize would you be willing to donate to a local refugee camp or another charity of your choice?” Unlike in the original study, it was important to give people the option to choose the charity to decrease the chance of subjects who did not want to donate specifically to a local refugee camp, to be
excluded from the results. While in this thesis this donation question was asked at the end of the approximately 7-10 minute survey, in the original study it was asked after 30 minutes. It should be kept in mind that this could potentially influence the results of moral self-licensing over time as this ethical donation question is asked about three times later than in this current thesis.
Hypothesis
The principal hypothesis based on the body of research on moral self-licensing is that participants in Products Organic have a lower willingness to pay for the added certification than the
participants in Products Baseline. In Products Organic, participants know that the products already fulfil another independent, ethically relevant dimension by being organic. This is why when an additional ethical facet is added to the product, participants feel that they have already fulfilled a good deed and will have a lower willingness to pay for that added ethical facet. This therefore means that static moral self-licensing occurs.
For Products Organic there were two products; organic orange juice and organic shower gel. For Organic orange juice, the added certification was eco-friendly recyclable packaging, while the organic certification for organic shower gel was a cruelty-free certification. We therefore expect that for both products within Products Organic, there is a lower willingness to pay than for subjects in Products Baseline, and static moral self-licensing takes place.
H1: The average level of willingness to pay is lower for Products Organic compared to Products Baseline.
On top of the static product decision, participants are confronted with an additional separate ethical choice at the end of the survey, by indicating a percentage on how much of their 50 euro prize they would be willing to donate to a local refugee camp or another charity of their liking. In accordance with previous research on moral self-licensing at a later stage in time, having a higher willingness to pay for products with more than one ethical aspect in the first phase, means that participants would act less ethical at a later point in time. The second hypothesis is therefore: participants in Products Organic are willing to donate a smaller
percentage than those in Products Baseline. This means that static moral self-licensing and moral self-licensing at a later point in time may strengthen one another.
H2: The average level of willingness to donate is lower for Products Organic compared to Products Baseline.
Results
Willingness to Pay
To test whether the treatment Products Organic had a higher willingness to pay for an added certification, than the Products Baseline group, an independent sample t-test was conducted. Firstly, since the willingness to pay scale is inversed, I made sure I reversed the variable at the value of 30. This is because the 30% discount is the willingness to pay as it marks the lowest price increase in comparison to the same product without the certification. The hypothesis was that static moral self-licensing would occur, meaning that participants consider ethical
in Products Organic have a lower willingness to pay for an added ethical dimension, whether it was a cruelty-free certification or eco-friendly packaging. The results from this study show however that this is not the case.
Table 1: Willingness to Pay for Products Organic and Products Baseline
Table 2: T-test Willingness to Pay for Products Organic and Products Baseline
t df Sig. (2-tailed)
Willingness to pay 0.261 135 0.794
The results from the 2-sided t-test show that the significance is p=.794. Since the value is not below .05, it means that it is insignificant. This means that the Products Organic group weren’t willing to pay significantly less than the Products Baseline group and therefore static moral self-licensing does not take place. Hereby, they also do not give less value to an added ethical dimension when the product already fulfils another ethical aspect by being organic. This means that the participants did not care less about cruelty free or eco-friendly packaging. Static moral self-licensing does not occur. When looking at the two treatments individually, Products Organic has a mean of: 13.96, while Products Baseline has a mean of: 13.43. In this case you can see that the willingness to pay in Products Organic is non-significant, but still higher than
Products Baseline for both shower gel and juice products.
Treatment N Mean Std. Deviation
Products Organic 67 13.96 11.16
This means that the hypothesis H1: the average level of willingness to pay is lower for Products Organic compared to Products Baseline, is rejected.
Willingness to Donate – Moral Self Licensing over time
At the end of the survey of about 7-10 minutes, participants in both treatment groups were asked what percentage of their 50 euro prize they would be willing to donate to a local refugee camp or another charity of their choice if they were selected as the winner. To test this, an Independent Sample T-test was conducted. If moral self-licensing is present, then participants in Products Organic would donate a lower percentage of their prize to a charity than those in Products Baseline.
Table 3: Willingness to Donate
Treatment N Mean Std. Deviation
Products Organic 67 71.43 33.45
Products Baseline 70 62.23 40.31
Figure 1: Willingness to Donate Chart
62.23 71.43 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Baseline Organic Willingness to Donate P er ce n t
As shown in Table 3 and Figure 1, this is not the case in our study. Participants in Products Organic in fact have a higher willingness to donate than those in Products Baseline. Products Organic has a mean of 71.43, which is a higher percentage of willingness to donate than 62.23, the mean of Products Baseline. This is in fact contrary to the results from the original study of Engel & Szech (2017).
Below in Table 4 it is visible that the results are however insignificant (p=.149,
independent sample t-test). While there doesn't seem to be strong enough evidence to reject the H2 with a p-value of .149, the size of the insignificant relation may still be relevant as it is still reasonably close to the significance of .05. This relation may in fact be limited to the relatively small sample size of 135 subjects.
The hypothesis H2: the average level of willingness to donate is lower for Products Organic compared to Products Baseline, is rejected.
Table 4: T-test Willingness to Donate
t df Sig. (2-tailed)
Willingness to Donate 1.45 135 0.149
Out of 173 participants, the person that was randomly selected to win the 50 euro prize was: bartvisser123@gmail.com. He chose to give 0% of the prize to charity and was therefore given the full prize after being contacted via email.
Willingness to pay across the other independent variables
Willingness to pay as the dependent variable which was calculated above, is now measured across all the other independent variables. Firstly, the reverse items of BFI-K personality facets were treated. Once all reverse items were treated, the means were found for the scales with multiple items. OLS regression was then used to detect if there were any significant differences concerning what kind of personalities, whether the person is male or female, and if socio-economic status affects the willingness to pay for ethical certifications of cruelty-free and eco-friendly packaged products.
Table 5: Does Education, Gender, Socio-economic status, BFI-K personality facets affect Willingness to Pay
Significance values: * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01
Regression Willingness to pay
Constant 0.638 Gender 0.036** Education 0.852 Socio-economic Status 0.015** Extraversion 0.434 Agreeableness 0.939 Conscientiousness 0.868 Neuroticism 0.503 Openness 0.154 Group 0.503 R2 0.098 Adj. R2 0.034 F 1.529 ∆R2 0.098 ∆F 1.529
Here we can see that gender and socio-economic status affects the willingness to pay, while all the other independent variables are insignificant. Participants do not score significantly in any personality facet; Extraversion (p=.434), Agreeableness (p=.939), Conscientiousness (p=.868), Neuroticism (p=.503), Openness (p=.154). Therefore none of the five facets of the Big Five Personality (BFI-K) correlates with willingness to pay for products with an added ethical certification. While the personality openness fails to reach the threshold for significance, a larger sample size would perhaps show a significant relation with willingness to pay.
For socio-economic status, p=.015 which is below the level of .05**, making it
significant. This therefore means that the higher someone’s socioeconomic status is, the higher their willingness to pay.
Gender significantly correlates with willingness to pay (p=.036**). To find out whether female or male was more willing to pay, gender was made into a dummy variable to assign a numerical value to the levels of categorical variables so that 0= male and 1= female. By calculating the mean scores, you can see in table 4 that females have a higher willingness to pay with a mean of 14.95, while males have a mean of 10.73. Females therefore have a higher willingness to pay.
Table 4: Means of Gender differences on Willingness to Pay
Gender Mean N Std. Deviation
Male 10.73 41 10.81
Willingness to Donate across the other Independent Variables
As an extension of Engel & Szech’s (2017) study, willingness to donate as the dependent variable was also measured across all the other independent variables through a regression. This was done in the same way willingness to pay was treated against the other variables above. This was important as the regression results are a bit more robust than a simple comparison of means by t-test.
Table 5: Does Education, Gender, Socio-economic status, BFI-K personality facets affect Willingness to Donate
Significance values: * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01
Regression Willingness to Donate
Constant 0.659 Gender 0.508 Education 0.153 Socio-economic Status 0.272 Extraversion 0.946 Agreeableness 0.173 Conscientiousness 0.715 Neuroticism 0.576 Openness 0.626 Group 0.086* R2 0.097 Adj. R2 0.033 F 1.509 ∆R2 0.097 ∆F 1.509
Here we can see that for willingness to donate, the group variable is significant (p=.086 < 0.1*). All the other independent variables however are insignificant for willingness to donate. The BFI-K personality facets, gender, socio-economic status as well as education do not
contribute to a person’s willingness to donate. While the personality agreeableness (p=.173) and education (p=.153) fail to reach the level of significance, it is still noteworthy to mention as having a larger sample size could possibly yield significant results for these variables.
Conclusion
To conclude, static moral self-licensing was not present during this study. The average
willingness to pay for an added ethical dimension was not less for Products Organic than it was for Products Baseline. In fact, oppositely so, Products Organic had a higher willingness to pay than Products Baseline, though not significant. Satisfying one ethical element in a product does not alleviate conscience in a different yet still ethical product. Moral self-licensing was also not present over time. At the end of the survey, subjects in Products Organic had a higher willingness to donate than those in Products Baseline, however, this was also insignificant. Thus, moral self-licensing whether static or over time, was not present during this study. Socio-economic status and gender however positively correlate with the willingness to pay for an added ethical
dimension. The higher the socio-economic status, the higher the willingness to pay for products with an added ethical certification. Gender also significantly correlates with willingness to pay, with females having a higher average willingness to pay than men. None of the five facets of the Big Five Personality (BFI-K) had a significant relation to willingness to pay or willingness to donate. For willingness to donate however, the group variable (whether Products Organic or Products Baseline treatment) was significant. The results show that individuals in fact do not act
as if there were solid substitutive associations between ethical and unrelated product characteristics.
In comparison to the replicated study by Engel and Szech (2017), all of the findings seem to contradict that of theirs. Firstly, moral self-licensing was in fact present both statically and over time in their study, while in this thesis, it was not. Out of the Big 5 personality facets, while they were all insignificant for this current thesis, willingness to pay for an added ethical
dimension was driven by agreeableness for Engel and Szech (2017). Willingness to donate was significantly lower for the Organic treatment than for the Baseline treatment, while this was not the case for this current research. Again, contrary to the results of this thesis, Gender and Socio-economic status did not significantly influence Willingness to pay for a supplementary ethical product aspect.
Limitations
A primary limitation of this study is the use of a convenience non-probability sample as it decreases the generalizability of the results, even though this was the same method used in the replicated study. It is highly probable that a large percentage of those who chose to participate in the study were specifically interested in the topic of this thesis as well as mostly colleagues and individuals within a personal network in the Netherlands. This means that it is harder to
generalize the results to the overall population. Furthermore, those interested in the topic were likely ethical consumers that would be prone to having a high willingness to pay for ethical product dimensions regardless, meaning that the likelihood for moral self-licensing to take place could have also been lower. This is because ethical consumers are likely to act more virtuously across all scenarios compared to an average consumer. The reason they are less likely to engage in moral self-licensing is because these type of consumers regularly purchase ethical products.
Their threshold for seeing this type of purchase as being an ethical action is more likely higher than that of an average consumer who likely purchases such items less frequently. Purchasing ethical products may therefore have a higher chance of licensing immoral actions among those weakly dedicated to ethical or political consumption.
Another limitation is that the moral self-licensing effect may depend on whether the dependent variable is real behavior or hypothetical. There is always the chance with a self-reported survey that there will be common-method bias and social desirable responses, even though this study emphasized the necessity for honesty and anonymity. The willingness to pay in this research measured intentions and not actual behavior. The donation question in this study is tricky as it was hypothetical in terms of the fact that it was not tangible money, but instead an indication of the amount they would actually donate if they were one of the people selected to win the 50 euro. It could be that people donated more simply because they believed that their chance to win was very small. The literature shows that people have a strong urge to appear ethical while actually evading the real costs that come with it (Batson & Thompson, 2001; Dana, Weber, & Kuang, 2006). Since it is quite easy to show hypothetical moral conduct, in these situations there could be a lower inclination to display unfavorable actions. Conducting future research with real and attained money could possibly yield different results.
Out of the 173 participants, 135 actually fully completed the survey. Something that could have slightly reduced this issue would have been to place the demographic questions at the end of the survey rather than in the beginning, thereby reducing the survey time for the questions that are most relevant. Increasing the sample size would give a greater power to detect differences.
In this study, the shorter measure of BFI-K for Big 5 personality traits with 21 items was used instead of the 44 item scale. This was chosen at it was the same measure the replicated study by Engel & Szech (2017) used. The less deviations there are from the original study, the more
valid it is when comparing results. Another reason for using the shorter questionnaire scale was due to the research setting in which participant time was limited. While BFI-K possesses a satisfactory assessment on personality, there are still some losses in comparison to the full item scale. According to Rammstedt and John (2006), they found that the BFI-K scale still hold significant levels of validity and reliability, however it does generate effect sizes that are lower than those with the full BFI-44 (Rammstedt & John, 2007).
According to a meta-analytic review on moral self-licensing (Blanken, van de Ven, Zeelenberg, 2015), it was found that the moral self-licensing effect size is smaller than the
average effect size in the domain of social psychology. While this does not suggest that the moral self-licensing effect has little practical or theoretical significance, this small effect size means that research on moral self-licensing needs a much larger sample-size than what would typically be required. By using G*power it was discovered that 165 subjects per condition would be required to have 80% statistical power to find an effect (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007). They also found that on average, the current research up to 2015 only have 28% power. Increasing the amount of participants in moral self-licensing research and in this study in particular, would increase the chance of discovering an effect. This could therefore have played a part in the outcome of the results. Increasing the sample size in this study to 96 participants per treatment would have allowed for more robust conclusions.
Discussion
The most important contribution of this paper is the fact that it disproves the theory of moral self-licensing. Static moral self-licensing and moral-self licensing over time did not take place. In fact, on the contrary, for both the willingness to pay and for the willingness to donate, Products Organic scored higher. While this was insignificantly so, it is still worth noting due to the small
effect size of moral self-licensing. This means that Products Organic did not morally redeemed themselves as they dealt with products that fulfilled multiple ethical criteria, compared to Products Baseline. Moreover, the contentment of fulfilling one ethical aspect did not lead to a reduced valuation of a second, though morally unrelated dimension, at a later point in time (willingness to donate). The objective of this study was indeed to question the research on moral self-licensing as it conflicted with basic psychological theory of human behavior. These results indicate that future studies should challenge the body of research on moral self-licensing.
Something to take into consideration is that the level of moral ambiguity could moderate moral self-licensing. When the following action has little ambiguity that particular behaviors are immoral, then the effect of moral self-licensing could be less likely. Because people have a drive for self-consistency, they are less likely to engage in inconsistent conduct without it being easy to justify (Brown et al. 2011). For-example, having a lower willingness to pay for cruelty-free certification, does not necessarily have to mean that the individual believes they are immoral. They may be able to justify their decision such as “I am not a vegetarian and we support the killing of animals daily to feed ourselves, so why should I feel differently about animal testing”. Of course there are many that would disagree with this. What is relevant here though is that people may have different standards on what they consider to be immoral, therefore choosing an action that is very clearly immoral or making sure subjects rate whether they feel the action is immoral or not could solve this potential issue. For instance, behavior such as cheating could be more difficult to justify, which means that individuals may be less likely to do so, regardless of whether they feel that they are ethically licensed to do so. For-example, in the study of Brown et al. (2011) they had two opportunities to cheat, one which was more rationalizable than the other. The results showed that licensing was much stronger in the easily rationalizable condition. Future
research could therefore take the possible level of rationalization of the licensing condition into consideration.
Another aspect to consider is that moral self-licensing may not affect everyone the same. As briefly touched upon, those with solid ethical principles and steady ethical behavior will be more likely to act consistently than individuals with weaker moral beliefs. Moral self-licensing could be less among these people as they are less likely to disregard their beliefs that is directly connected to their self-concept (Mazar & Zhong, 2010). This aspect of moral self-licensing has been commonly unobserved in research. A study that did look into this however was Effron et al. (2009), who showed that the licensing effect was moderated by subjects racist beliefs. Those that scored as being highly racist did not have a licensing effect while whereas those with low racist scores, did: those with low racism scores who supported Obama donated more to the Black organization. Future research on moral self-licensing could therefore control for subjects levels of moral commitment to the subject.
Whatever the reasons may be for the absence of moral self-licensing in this study, it could very well mean that we should be questioning the theory itself. As mentioned previously, many deeply-rooted psychological theories on consistency, self-concept and social responsibility go against the theory of moral self-licensing. It contradicts the idea of consistency as motivation in human behavior, such as self-perception theory which views individual behavior as a response to their own view of their actions (Bem, 1972). Many other established theories such as cognitive dissonance, balance theory and the sunk cost effect also go against the essence of moral self-licensing through behavioral consistency. These major psychological concepts state that we like being ethical people, and even more so when prior good deeds have just been highlighted. This could explain why participants that were in Products Organic actually scored higher for both willingness to pay and willingness to donate (even though it was insignificant). Research has also
shown that ethical consumption is motivated by responsibility that is constant in our behavior in order to serve a larger political purpose. These theories go directly against the several studies that have been conducted on moral self-licensing. The results indicate that fulfilling multiple ethical aspects of a product rather than just one, may in fact be worth it for companies, given that ethical consumers are not likely to use the licensing excuse. This could be an important incentive for companies to alter their products into more conscious practices that fulfil multiple dimensions that match the needs of ethical consumers. Reducing the effects of global warming and pollution is a big issue of today that is affecting us all. Altering the way we produce and consume products is therefore essential. Being consistent in our ethical consumption behavior rather than making moral excuses will help drive this positive change forward.
All in all, instead of assuming a blanket effect, where a consumer has the drive to be consistent or the drive to engage in moral self-licensing, it likely lies somewhere in-between. After conducting this research, it appears that the theoretical framework of moral self-licensing could be reassessed. Studying the concept less as an effect, and more as a theory could also prove to be useful, such as incorporating the moral self-licensing process with consistency and
motivational theories of behavior (Gawronski & Strack, 2012). The similarity between the two opposing theories of licensing and consistency is that they both rely on previous actions as the main predictor of future behavior. A broader ranging theory of moral self-licensing could thus integrate the knowledge of consistency theories.
Consistency theories hold that people have the determination to be consistent, and therefore when inconsistencies take place, individuals are then motivated to lessen those
irregularities. One way to decrease inconsistencies in behavior is by changing the situation or re-evaluating it in their mind so that it becomes consistent (e.g. I did not offer the homeless man money as he seemed like an alcoholic and I did not want to support his abuse). This is one of the
reasons why looking into the process of moral self-licensing or consistency theories rather than the actual effect would also be useful. The findings of this research have important implications for moral self-licensing and ethical consumption as a form of political and moral contribution that can drive the economic shift that is necessary for the survival of our planet. Future research that improves our understanding of moral self-licensing may help us find ways to prevent unethical or selfish consumption, as well as support settings that promote sincere, ethical, and self-actualizing behavior to serve the greater good.
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Appendix II: Measurement Scales
Big Five Inventory (BFI-K) Personality Scale I see myself as someone who…
- Extraversion:
o EV1. Is reserved (Reversed)
o EV2. Generates a lot of enthusiasm o EV3. Tends to be quiet (Reversed) o EV4. Is outgoing, sociable
- Agreeableness:
o AB1. Tends to find fault with others (Reversed) o AB2. Is generally trusting
o AB3. Can be cold and aloof (Reversed) o AB4. Is sometimes rude to others (Reversed) - Conscientiousness:
o CS1. Does a thorough job
o CS2. Tends to be lazy (Reversed) o CS3. Does things efficiently
o CS4. Makes plans and follows through with them - Neuroticism:
o NR1. Is depressed, blue
o NR2. Is relaxed, handles stress well (reversed) o NR3. Worries a lot
- Openness:
o OP1. Is curious about many different things o OP2. Is ingenious, a deep thinker
o OP3. Has an active imagination
o OP4. Values artistic, aesthetic experiences o OP5. Has few artistic interests (reversed)
Appendix III: SPSS Output
- T-test
Table 1: Willingness to Pay for Products Organic and Products Baseline
Table 2: Willingness to Donate
- OLS Regression
- Mean Differences
Table 4: Means of Gender differences on Willingness to pay
- OLS Regression
