Master’s Thesis
Selfless rather than Selfish below the Radar
Using Pro-Self instead of Pro-Social Justifications for
Moral Behavior to Avoid Anticipated Peer Resentment
By
Julia Storch
Selfless rather than Selfish below the Radar
Using Pro-Self instead of Pro-Social Justifications for
Moral Behavior to Avoid Anticipated Peer Resentment
Master’s Thesis
Completion Date
20.06.2016
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
Preface
Research can have the power to change our society by shedding light on how consumers behave, interact, and make their choices. In front of the background of a growing world population and the depletion of scarce natural resources, it has become ever more imperative to our society to understand how consumers can be motivated to act more sustainably, or what may hinder them to do so. Thus, I was, and still am, delighted to write my thesis about social risks inherent to sustainable consumption.
The literature on the moral do-gooder derogation phenomenon started to illuminate why unsustainably-acting consumers discredit and resent those who do the right thing. However, I was intrigued to switch perspectives and to investigate how sustainably-acting individuals deal with their moral superiority in face of their peers’ potential resentment. I hope that my study thereby makes a modest contribution to the achievement of the overall goal of promoting sustainable consumer behavior.
This being said, I would like to thank a couple of people who supported me during the process of writing this paper. I would like to express my profound gratitude towards my first supervisor dr. Jan Willem Bolderdijk, who devoted an exceptional amount of his time to provide me with his constructive and motivating feedback – not only during scheduled coaching sessions, but also whenever I needed his guidance. I also want to thank dr. Gert Cornelissen for providing me with feedback on my experiment and my second supervisor dr. Wander Jager.
Abstract
‘Vegetarian – that’s an old Indian word for lousy hunter’
Past research on moral do-gooder derogation revealed that morally-acting individuals are regularly ridiculed, discredited and resented by their less morally-acting peers. This paper proposes that moral actors may intuitively anticipate such peer resentment, and consequently engage in undercover altruism: I suggest that moral actors may attempt to avoid peer resentment by using selfish justifications to downplay the moral roots of their pro-social behavior.
The animosities between vegetarians and meat eaters set the stage to investigate whether undercover altruism is a pre-emptive measure to avoid moral do-gooder derogation. In a lab study, 102 vegetarian and vegan participants were asked to rate the importance of different selfless and selfish arguments in their decision to reduce their meat intake. Participants were either instructed that their answers would remain anonymous, or that their answers would be exposed to fellow participants in an upcoming group discussion.
The study did not yield sound statistical evidence that participants’, whose moral motivations were at public display, disguised their pro-sociality as selfishness. Other than expected, participants in the public setting used slightly less selfish arguments than in a private setting. Nevertheless, participants in the public setting also used slightly less selfless arguments which may provide an indication that an outing as moral person might go along with a certain degree of uneasiness. Qualitative data from the group discussion complemented the survey results by indicating that some participants may have tried to avoid the elicitation of downward social comparisons in a real social situation.
Table of Contents
Preface ... I Abstract ... II
First They Fight You and then You Win? ... 1
Theoretical Foundation ... 2
Moral Actors – A Threat to the Moral Self ... 2
Resentment from the Immoral – To Anticipate or not to Anticipate ... 3
Coping with Anticipated Resentment – Initially Selfless and Subsequently Selfish ... 4
Conceptual Model ... 5
Methodology ... 6
Operationalization of the Moral Actor ... 6
Recruitment of Vegetarian and Vegan Participants ... 7
Experimental Procedure & Measurement of Variables ... 8
Lab Setting & Cover Story ... 8
Manipulation of Publicness ... 8
Measurement of Justifications ... 9
Measurement of Anticipated Resentment ... 10
Manipulation Check ... 11
Additional Scales & End of Experiment ... 11
Results ... 12
Manipulation Check ... 12
Pro-self vs. Pro-social Justifications ... 12
Anticipated Resentment ... 13
Mediation Analysis ... 14
Anecdotal Indications for Undercover Altruism from the Group Discussion ... 15
General Discussion ... 16
Limitations & Future Research Directions ... 17
Managerial and Societal Implications ... 19
Conclusion ... 20
References ... 21
First They Fight You and then You Win?
‘First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win’.
(Mahatma Gandhi)
Mahatma Gandhi belongs to one of the most admired personalities in modern history. During his fight for civil rights and the independence of the Indian nation, he did not only demonstrate that resistance can be peaceful, but therewith also set a moral example. Nowadays, he is even cherished as ‘the father of the Indian nation’ and a symbol of pacifism. However, his movement and ideals have been deemed insignificant and dismissed as foolish by many of his opponents at the time. The above-mentioned quote stems from Gandhi himself and reflects his knowledge of these hostile reactions.
Indeed, the same patterns can still be observed today: Once an individual distinguishes itself from its peers based on moral grounds, it might be exposed to the risk of being derogated and resented by the latter (cf. Monin, Sawyer, & Marquez, 2008). This phenomenon is referred to as moral do-gooder derogation. Assuming that sustainable behavior is doing good at a personal cost and part of an individual’s ‘moral responsibility’ (Bolderdijk, Steg, Geller, Lehman, & Postmes, 2012, p. 413), one of the most prominent examples of moral do-gooder derogation manifests itself in the domain of ethical and sustainable food choices. Vegetarians frequently abstain from meat based on their animal welfare and environmental concerns (Fox & Ward, 2008) and are therefore not seldom confronted with hostility from their meat-eating peers (e.g. Minson & Monin, 2012).
Coming back to Gandhi, we know with hindsight that he was proven right and India became an independent nation. This may be a comforting perspective for those moral individuals who are struggling with resentment from their peers today. Nevertheless, not every moral actor may be as optimistic and as resilient as Mahatma Gandhi. Standing up for one’s convictions requires self-confidence, bravery, and perhaps a pinch of ignorance of other people’s opinions that not every moral actor may be equipped with.
true to their convictions in a ‘Gandhi-like’ manner? This paper aims to provide an answer to
these questions and shed more light on the impact of social risks inherent to moral behavior. This paper focuses on the domain of sustainable and ethical food choices as a manifestation of morality in consumer behavior. More specifically, this paper investigates if vegetarians disguise or downplay the moral roots of their sustainable life choice as a response to anticipated resentment from their meat-eating peers.
Theoretical Foundation
Moral Actors – A Threat to the Moral Self
Against the common notion that individuals tend to be fond of their moral actions because they create admiration from their peers (Griskevicius, Tybur, & Van den Bergh, 2010; Haidt, 2000; Monin, 2007), moral do-gooder derogation suggests the opposite. According to Festinger (1954) an individual’s drive for self-evaluation is based on drawing social comparisons with other individuals. Humans thereby compare their opinions and their abilities against those of their peers. Based on one’s relative performance, either superiority or a shortfall in one’s own opinions and abilities is perceived. Morality is an important domain of evaluation since it plays a critical role in the maintenance and enhancement of a moral self-image (Allison, Messick, & Goethals, 1989; Monin, 2007) and is also central to most individuals’ identities (Aquino & Reed, 2002). A moral actor, whose opinions or actions are morally superior to one’s own opinions and actions, therefore implies a shortfall in one’s own morality.
According to Epstein (1973) the maintenance and enhancement of the self-concept is a basic need of an individual. Individuals instinctively try to eliminate the source of a moral threat because it counteracts the goal of the maintenance and enhancement of a moral self-image. In order to alleviate the threat to the moral self, observers engage in acts of defensive processing with the aim of restoring their threatened self-images (Alicke, 2000; Monin, 2007). Observers’ defensive reactions can be classified into three types of coping strategies differing in their degree of hostility – suspicion, trivialization, and resentment (Monin, 2007). With these coping strategies observers try to change disadvantageous self-evaluations from a social comparison with the moral actor in their favor. Finally, it is easier to emerge as superior from a comparison, if the benchmark is (kept) low (Taylor & Lobel, 1989; Wills, 1981). Moral do-gooder derogation allows observers to maintain a positive self-image and therefore explains why moral actors like Mahatma Gandhi are sometimes discredited and resented, rather than elevated and cherished.
Resentment from the Immoral – To Anticipate or not to Anticipate
Research on the phenomenon of moral do-gooder derogation has been predominantly focusing on the perspective of the (immoral) observer to a moral action of exemplars (e.g. Bolderdijk et al., 2016; Minson & Monin, 2012; Zane et al., 2016). Bearing Gandhi’s quote in mind, it is worthwhile to explore moral do-gooder derogation from the angle of the moral actor. If Gandhi anticipated defensive reactions from his opponents (i.e. ‘they ignore, ridicule, and
fight you’), why should the moral actor not also anticipate the resentment from an (involved)
observer?
Exline and Lobel (2001, p. 593) report that individuals who are outperforming others may perceive a certain ‘uneasiness or discomfort’ (e.g. envy or relationship concerns). If an outperformer starts to put himself in the shoes of the outperformed peer, he may sense the threat he poses to the competent self-concept of the other person (Exline & Lobel, 2001). As a result, outperformers tend to develop a certain ‘sensitivity about being the target of a threatening upward comparison’ themselves (Exline & Lobel, 1999, p. 330). Manifestations of this sensitivity can range from ‘sympathy’ for the outperformed individual to ‘awkwardness’ or even ‘fear of retaliation or rejection’ (Exline & Lobel, 2001, p. 594).
jokes on vegetarians, as well as Facebook groups, solely dedicated to the derogation of the latter, may be considered as instances of retaliation and rejection of vegetarians by meat eaters. Hence, also from a circumstantial point of view, it may be assumed that vegetarians are aware of meat eater’s resentment. After all, threats inherent to downward social comparisons are hard to deny if they are experienced on a daily basis.
Coping with Anticipated Resentment – Initially Selfless and Subsequently Selfish
Assuming that morally-acting individuals may anticipate resentment from their peers, the following question arises: How do moral actors cope with peer resentment they anticipate? As already pointed out, one cannot expect that every moral individual would be as brave as Gandhi and just ‘sit it out’. Instead of choosing to be exposed to their peers’ resentment, moral actors may try to ‘defend’ themselves as well. In fact, there is evidence suggesting that individuals, who outperform others, tend to downplay their achievement so as to avoid becoming the subject of threatening upward social comparisons (Henagan & Bedeian, 2009).
Undercover altruism, i.e. the act of hiding one’s good deeds from others in order to appear less
morally superior (Bolderdijk & Cornelissen, 2015), may thus be a viable strategy to avoid anticipated peer resentment.
One avenue to downplay or hide one’s pro-sociality (i.e. altruistic/moral behavior) may be cloaking it under selfishness (i.e. self-interested behavior). Research on humans’ altruistic motivations suggests that morally-acting individuals already avoid admitting their good deeds in the absence of others (cf. Thogersen, 2011; Holmes, Miller, & Lerner, 2002). For instance, Thogersen’s (2011) findings on the motivations behind green shopping behavior reveal that participants, who bought organic products out of selfless motives, tended to rationalize their choice with selfish reasons (i.e. personal benefits) after purchase. Similarly, Holmes, Miller, and Lerner (2002) found that participants were more willing to donate to a charity when they received a small gift in exchange, that provided a rational cover for their pro-social behavior. Both studies argue that individuals engage in selfish rationalization because altruistic actions (i.e. actions upon which no personal benefit is obtained) supposedly corrupt a rational and competent self-concept (Steele, 1988).
pro-sociality moral actors may try to avoid threats to the self that are stemming from peer resentment. For instance, there is already some evidence suggesting that vegetarians try to avoid (moral) confrontations with meat eaters by communicating on the health benefits of their vegetarian lifestyle (Greenebaum, 2012). Emphasizing personal benefits (e.g. health, weight control, taste, costs) rather than morality (e.g. animal welfare, environmental preservation; cf. Fox & Ward, 2008), lets a vegetarian appear more selfish in front of meat eaters. A selfish vegetarian, in turn, does not appear as morally superior and hence does not pose a threat to meat eaters’ moral self-concepts (cf. Cramwinckel et al., 2013). Consequently, there would be no need for them to engage in defensive actions (e.g. resentment) against vegetarians.
I expect that the degree to which the moral actor disguises his own morality may depend on the extent to which he anticipates resentment from others. Consequently, I suppose that such downplaying of moral behavior by means of selfish justifications may be even more pronounced if the moral actor is forced to expose his motivations publicly, i.e. in front of other individuals. Differently put, pretended selfishness may not only provide a self-deceptive and rational cover for a moral actor’s privately held pro-sociality, but may additionally also protect him from peer resentment in a social (i.e. public) context.
Conceptual Model
With the goal of shedding more light on the social risks of sustainable consumption, this paper proposes that undercover altruism may be a pre-emptive measure of moral actors to avoid anticipated resentment from morally inferior peers.
It was suggested that justifying one’s pro-social behavior with selfish (i.e. pro-self) instead of selfless (i.e. pro-social) motives, may be an effective avenue to downplay or disguise underlying pro-social motivations from peers. It is expected that a moral actor may anticipate a morally inferior peer’s retributive actions, aimed at the restoration of his threatened moral self-image; especially, when the moral actor’s moral superiority is at public display.
H1: Moral actors will use more pro-self justifications for their moral behavior in a public than
in a private setting.
H2: Moral actors will anticipate more resentment from their peers in a public than in a private
setting.
H3: Anticipated resentment leads to the use of more pro-self justifications for moral behavior.
This study is the first to my knowledge to investigate the phenomenon of moral do-gooder derogation from the perspective of the moral actor. Hence, the goal is to explore if anticipated resentment occurs at all, and if it has a mediating effect on the type of justifications used for moral behavior. However, in order to give credit to the impact of an individual’s dispositional differences on anticipated resentment, scales of empathy and self-esteem will be included in this study in an exploratory fashion.1 Figure 1 visualizes the mediated impact of the publicness of a moral actor’s pro-social motivations (private vs. public) on the type of justifications used (pro-social vs. pro-self) for the moral actor’s pro-social behavior.
Methodology
Operationalization of the Moral Actor
The aim of this study was to assess whether morally acting individuals downplay the moral roots of their pro-social behavior in anticipation of hostile reactions from their less-morally acting peers. Since the study is focusing on the domain of sustainable consumer behavior, vegetarians, as representatives of a sustainably-acting moral minority, were approached as participants. This is a reasonable addition to other studies on the observer’s
1 For further explanation on the potentially moderating roles of empathy and self-esteem on the relationship
between publicness and justifications cf. Appendix A.
Anticipated Resentment Publicness private public Justification pro-social pro-self H1 H2 H3
Figure 1. Mediated impact of the exposure of motivations on the justification for moral
perspective that have been confronting participants with vegetarians in order to introduce a moral actor in their experiments (cf. Cramwinckel et al., 2013; Minson & Monin, 2012).
Further, vegetarian food choices are a convenient domain to explore if individuals downplay their decision to reduce their meat intake, since both pro-social (e.g. animal welfare concerns) and pro-self (e.g. health concerns) arguments have been listed as primary motivators for adopting a vegetarian diet (cf. Fox & Ward, 2008).2 Thus, this setting offers participants some leeway in their justifications: It is credible if a vegetarian emphasizes health-related over animal welfare-related motivations for reducing his meat intake.
Recruitment of Vegetarian and Vegan Participants
Vegetarian participants were predominantly recruited via posts in Facebook groups (e.g. Paid Research Participants Groningen and Vegan Groningen) and personal contacts. Additionally, flyers were distributed in different locations in the city center of Groningen, to advertise the study (e.g. RUG canteen, vegetarian restaurants, supermarkets).
The experiment was conducted for two and a half weeks from the 18th of April until the 3rd of May, 2016 in Groningen. In total, 102 participants took part in the study of which five were excluded due to a programming error (they received both manipulations of the independent variable, i.e. public and private condition instead of only public). One participant did not pass the screener question, i.e. checked that she was not vegetarian and three participants were excluded because they correctly guessed the purpose of the study as suggested by comments in the awareness check. Specifically, one of them suspected the discussion partners were confederates. The other two understood the study tried to test whether they anticipated resentment from the discussion partners and therefore altered their justifications for being vegetarian. All of the remaining 93 participants passed the attention check and were included in subsequent analyses.
Of these 93 participants 81.7 % were female. To broaden the reach for recruitment, vegetarians (65.6 %) as well as vegans (34.4 %) were included in the study.3 74.2 % of participants were between 18 and 24 years old. Participants were predominantly students (86.0
2 Despite the two distinct ideological bases (Lindeman & Sirelius, 2001) of vegetarian motivations (i.e. ‘health’
vs. ‘ethical’ vegetarians, cf. Fox & Ward, 2008), it is assumed that, irrespective of initial motivations, vegetarianism is still a pro-social life choice because it incurs a certain amount of self-sacrifice that benefits the planet and its beings.
%) and mostly German (38.8 %) or Dutch (32.3 %).4
Experimental Procedure & Measurement of Variables
Lab Setting & Cover Story
The experiment had the format of a lab study and was conducted in one room of the Harmony Complex of the University of Groningen. The lab was preferred over an online survey since it was assumed that the moral actor may be more likely to anticipate and care about resentment from an observer, if a face-to-face confrontation with the same observer follows. Thus, an online setting would not be a suitable context to test for undercover altruism.
Participants were welcomed in the lab by the researcher and asked to answer a short English questionnaire5 at the computer that supposedly pertained to ‘some simple background
questions’. After that, they were picked up and guided to another room, where they would
engage in a small group discussion with a couple of other participants. Participants were not informed that the group discussion was part of a second study. ‘Vegetarian/vegan product
adoption’ was introduced as general study topic.
Manipulation of Publicness
In a between-participants design participants were randomly assigned to one of two different conditions (private vs. public). They were either instructed their justifications for reducing their meat intake would (public condition, n = 44) or would not (private condition, n = 49) be disclosed to others in a following discussion with other participants that supposedly had ‘different eating habits’. Specifically, participants were led to believe that they would either be talking about ‘motivations underlying their vegetarian food choices’ (public condition), or that they had the chance to taste a vegan product and talk about their ‘taste perceptions of this
particular vegan product’ (private condition).
After this introduction, participants were asked to answer demographic questions on their gender, age, nationality, and occupation. Additionally, participants were asked if they were vegetarian or vegan to screen out non-vegetarians, and to make participants believe that meat eaters may also be participating in the study (i.e. manipulate an involved discussion partner). Thereafter, Justifications were measured.
Measurement of Justifications
Participants were provided with a list of ten different arguments and asked to rate the importance of each argument as a motivator to reduce their meat intake on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from ‘motivated me not at all’ (1) to ‘motivated me very much’ (7). Depending on the condition, participants were informed that their answers would either ‘serve as a basis for the
following group discussion about motivations for vegetarian/vegan food choices’ (public
condition) or that their motivations for adopting a vegetarian/vegan diet would ‘remain
anonymous’ (private condition). The arguments were based on the results of Fox and Ward’s
(2008) qualitative study on vegetarian motivations. Four of the arguments reflected pro-social motivations and the remaining six arguments reflected pro-self motivations for reducing one’s meat intake.6
The pro-social arguments were formulated as follows: ‘Animals should not be killed for
my consumption.’; ‘A vegetarian/vegan diet is more environmentally friendly because the production of meat consumes many natural resources.’; ‘I do not want to support the unworthy and abusive conditions in which animals are kept.’; ‘I want to pursue a lifestyle that is neither harming the planet, nor the beings living on it.’
The pro-self arguments were: ‘A plant-based diet is very healthy and contributes to the
prevention of many diseases.’; ‘A vegetarian/vegan diet helps me to control my weight.’; ‘Eating no meat enhances my wellbeing. I feel more energized and alive without eating meat.’; ‘A plant-based diet is very healthy, and therefore contributes to an increase of life expectancy.’; ‘I do not like the taste of meat very much.’; ‘Consuming meat on a regular basis is expensive.’
As displayed by the means of the different arguments in Table 1, participants generally rated pro-social arguments (e.g. Animals, Animal Abuse) as being more important than pro-self arguments (e.g. Prevention, Longevity, Taste). For subsequent analyses, arguments pertaining to animal rights and the environment were averaged in a Pro-social subscale (α = .70, M = 6.00, SD = .96), whereas arguments that related to health benefits were averaged in a Pro-self subscale (α = .80, M = 4.14, SD = 1.44).7
6 Arguments have not been labelled as either pro-social or pro-self, but the instructions reminded participants that
arguments were either more ecologically-conscious, or health-conscious. Due to participants’ comments in the following group discussion two additional items pertaining to the taste and price of meat have been added to the scale after the first 25 participants.
Table 1
Average ratings and standard deviations for all arguments per computed subscale. Pro-Social Subscale M SD Animals 5.92 1.42 Environment 5.70 1.49 Animal Abuse 6.46 .98 Lifestyle 5.92 1.35 Pro-Self Subscale Prevention 4.95 1.60 Weight 2.92 1.83 Wellbeing 4.52 1.99 Longevity 4.16 1.84 Taste 2.25 2.35 Price 2.08 2.04
The primary focus of this study was to measure participants’ justifications for the reduction of their meat intake quantitatively (via ratings on provided arguments). However, the following group discussion also provided some qualitative data that allowed to draw conclusions pertaining to participants’ justifications. These data will be discussed after the analyses of the quantitative survey data in the results section.
Measurement of Anticipated Resentment
Next, the second dependent variable Anticipated Resentment was measured based on the scales that Monin et al. (2008) used to measure the observer’s resentment towards the moral actor. The questions were slightly adapted to match the experimental procedure and the change in perspective. The anticipated resentment scale was introduced by asking participants to
‘answer some questions concerning their expectations of the upcoming discussion’.
on the following fourteen 7-point semantic differentials ranging from (-3) to (+3): stupid–
intelligent, weak–strong, insecure–confident, passive–active, cruel–kind, awful–nice, cold– warm, dishonest–honest, unfair–fair, unpleasant–pleasant, dependent–independent, stingy– generous, immature–mature, and low self-esteem–high self-esteem.
The four items pertaining to Liking & Respect where averaged in one variable (α = .77,
M = 7.21, SD = 1.23). For the personality traits a confirmatory factor analysis with principal
component extraction and VARIMAX rotation revealed two underlying factors explaining 62.2 % of total variance. The first factor Competence is comprised of the averaged scores on the items stupid–intelligent, weak–strong, insecure–confident, passive–active, dishonest–honest,
dependent–independent, immature–-mature, and low self-esteem–high self-esteem (α = .89, M
= 2.77, SD = .85). The second factor Agreeableness contains the averaged scores of the items
cruel–kind, awful–nice, unpleasant–pleasant, cold–warm, unfair–fair, and stingy–generous (α
= .86, M = 2.65, SD = .71).
Manipulation Check
After the measure of anticipated resentment, the manipulation check was included. Participants were asked to rate to what extent they were considering the potential reactions of their fellow discussion partners when reporting the motivations for reducing their meat intake. A 7-point Likert scale was used ranging from ‘not at all’ (1) to ‘very much’ (7) (M = 2.59, SD = 1.73). Since participants in the public condition were told that their justifications would be shown to fellow discussion members, it was expected that these participants would be more inclined to think about their potential reactions.
Additional Scales & End of Experiment
Finally, the potential moderators, empathy and self-esteem, were included. Empathy was measured with the 7-item Perspective-Taking subscale of Davis’ Interpersonal Reactivity Index (α = .77, M = 19.97, SD = 3.90; cf. Frías-Navarro, 2009). Self-esteem was measured with Rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item self-esteem scale (α = .79, M = 23.62 , SD = 3.74 ).
study had been conducted.
Results
Manipulation Check
It was generally expected that participants in a public setting would be more likely to anticipate peer resentment and therefore use more pro-self instead of pro-social justifications for the reduction of their meat intake. It was presupposed that participants in the public setting would be more likely to take the reactions of their fellow discussion members into consideration. Since the scale for the manipulation check ranged from considering others’ reactions ‘not at all’ (1) to ‘very much’ (7), participants should display at least a moderately high rating (i.e. higher than (3)) in the public condition.
However, the manipulation check revealed that participants in the public setting (n = 44, M = 2.39, SD = 1.59) did not consider discussion members’ reactions significantly more (t(91) = -1.08, p = .28) than participants in a private setting (n = 49, M = 2.78, SD = 1.85). Despite a rather elaborate manipulation, it seemed like participants in the public setting were generally not very inclined to take others’ reactions into account when reporting their vegetarian motivations. Specifically, 75 % of participants in the public condition (n = 33) failed the manipulation check. This number was considered as too substantial to exclude them from analyses (i.e. only 11 participants would have been left in the public condition). Thus, the full sample was retained.
Pro-self vs. Pro-social Justifications
An independent samples t-test was conducted to assess whether justifications
(Pro-social vs. Pro-self) for the reduction of participants’ meat intake significantly differed across
conditions (private vs. public). Against Hypothesis 1, which posed that a vegetarian would use more pro-self arguments in a public setting, average ratings on the Pro-self subscale tended to be slightly lower in the public as opposed to the private condition. Average ratings on the
Pro-social subscale also received slightly lower ratings in the public than in the private condition.
However, the differences between ratings on the Pro-social (t(91) = .78, p = .44) and
Pro-self (t(91) = 1.16, p = .25) subscales were not significant across the two conditions. Figure
Anticipated Resentment
Another independent samples t-test was conducted to assess differences on the three anticipated peer resentment measures Liking & Respect, Competence and Agreeableness across conditions. In accordance with Hypothesis 2, which stated that participants would anticipate higher levels of peer resentment in a public setting, participants in the public condition indeed expected that fellow discussion partners would like and respect them slightly less. Surprisingly, average scores on Competence and Agreeableness tended to be slightly higher in the public compared to the private condition, i.e. participants anticipated to be perceived as more competent and agreeable when their justifications for becoming vegetarian were public.
As already suggested by the large amount of participants who did not consider others’ reactions in the public condition, there were neither significant differences between conditions for Liking & Respect (t(91) = 1.16, p = .25), nor for Competence (t(91) = -.57, p = .57), or
Agreeableness (t(91) = -.47, p = .64).
For subsequent analyses, only the measure Liking & Respect was included because it best reflected the interpersonal risks vegetarians may face when their pro-social motivations are public. Graphical representations of the means (standard deviations) on the three anticipated peer resentment measures per condition are displayed in Figure 3.
Figure 2. Means (standard deviations) on Pro-Social and Pro-self subscales per condition.
Higher scores represent higher importance of pro-social and pro-self arguments. Arguments were rated on a scale from (1) to (7).
Mediation Analysis
Employing Model 4 (bias-corrected, 1000 bootstrap samples) of the PROCESS macro (cf. Appendix D; Hayes, 2013), it was tested for a mediated impact of publicness (with private coded as 0, and public coded as 1) on justifications through anticipated resentment (cf.
Hypothesis 3). Since the macro only allows for one dependent variable, the two justification
subscales Pro-social and Pro-self were combined into one differential score (M = -1.87, SD = 1.50). Thereby, the ratings on the Pro-social subscale were subtracted from the respective ratings on the Pro-self subscale. In accordance with the hypotheses, this score should increase in the public compared to the private condition due to higher expected ratings on the Pro-self and lower expected ratings on the Pro-social subscale.
As displayed by Figure 4, process analysis confirmed previous results. Neither anticipated resentment (β = -.019, t(90) = -.15, p = .88)8, nor the publicness of participants’ justifications (β = -.20, t(90)= -.62, p = .54), significantly influenced the differential justification score. Thus, Hypotheses 1 and 2 were rejected due to lack of statistical significance. Consequently, it was not surprising that there was also no indirect effect of publicness on
8 All coefficients are unstandardized.
Figure 3. Means (standard deviations) on each anticipated resentment measure per
condition. Higher scores indicate less peer resentment. Liking & Respect was rated on a scale from (1) to (11), Competence and Agreeableness were rated on a scale from (-3) to (+3). 7.35 (1.26) 2.72 (0.92) (0.71)2.62 7.05 (1.18) 2.82 (0.77) (0.71)2.69 0 2 4 6 8 10
justifications through anticipated resentment (95 % CI [-0.08, 0.44]). Hence, also Hypothesis 3 was rejected.9
Anecdotal Indications for Undercover Altruism from the Group Discussion
Due to lack of statistical power, the results of the survey were not convincing. However, participants’ spontaneously offered justifications for their vegetarian lifestyle during the group discussion yielded some additional insight.10 Since it was not initially intended to use the qualitative data from the discussion, it did not primarily cover motivations for adopting a vegetarian diet, but rather motivations to adopt vegetarian meat substitutes. Thus, only those participants (n = 45) that clearly stated their underlying vegetarian motivations were considered.11
Nevertheless, it was remarkable that less than half of participants voluntarily mentioned motivations underlying their vegetarian lifestyle. It was thereby peculiar that moral motivations were only expressed by 15.56 % of participants, even though pro-social vegetarian motivations were most pronounced in the survey (cf. Figure 2). Against the assumption that health-related arguments would be emphasized because they provide a rational cover for underlying pro-social motivations, only 20.00 % of participants actually mentioned such health-related justifications. 37.78 % of participants expressed neither animal/environment-, nor health-related justifications. Specifically, 24.44 % mentioned taste arguments (e.g. they did not like the taste of meat) and 11.11 % expressed a lack of desire to eat meat.
9 Additionally, a conditional process analysis with empathy and self-esteem as moderators of the relationship
between publicness and anticipated resentment was conducted (cf. Appendix E).
10 Since the manipulation in the survey did not trigger participants’ to consider others’ reactions to their
justifications in the public setting, I compared spontaneous justifications from the discussion with survey justifications (cf. Appendix F).
11 Participants’ spontaneous justifications were coded into different categories by two independent coders.
Inter-coder agreement amounted to 94 %. An overview of these categories and corresponding percentages is provided in Appendix G. β = -.20, ns (β= .006, ns) β = -.019, ns Anticipated Resentment Publicness private (0) public (1) Justification pro-social pro-self β = -.30, ns
Figure 4. Non-significant mediated impact of publicness of motivations on the justification for
Interestingly, participants also found other ways to avoid the elicitation of downward social comparisons. 11.11 % tried to highlight their own shortcomings, presumably so as to prevent appearing morally superior to discussion partners. Vegetarian participants thereby admitted that they had tried and failed to become vegan, or vegans mentioned they still did not completely abstain from dairy products or still wore leather. Some vegetarians also distinguished themselves from vegans and presented vegetarianism as a more moderate lifestyle than veganism. On top of that, 4.44 % of participants mentioned they had become vegetarian due to animal welfare concerns during their childhood or adolescence, but that they had adopted many other motivations by now (e.g. due to health improvements).12
General Discussion
Even though the question, whether morally-acting individuals disguise their morality to avoid resentment from their peers or stay true to their convictions in a public setting, may not be answered with certainty, the survey and the group discussion yielded noteworthy results.
Participants in the survey may have tried to appear slightly (but not significantly) less moral and less competent in the public condition. Interestingly, vegetarianism seems to be a life choice that is not only particularly moral, but is also indicative of an individual’s competence to maintain a healthy and balanced diet. Since the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle is generally important to people’s identities, i.e. their (competent) self-images (Bisogni et al., 2002), a meat eater can feel outperformed by a vegetarian on a competence dimension, in addition to a moral dimension. Consequently, results of the survey hint that vegetarians in the public setting may have tried to avoid the elicitation of downward social comparison on a morality as well as a competence dimension.
The qualitative evidence from the group discussion suggests that some moral actors actually did avoid to appear superior to their peers in a real social situation. During the discussion almost forty percent of the participants that spontaneously mentioned their underlying vegetarian motivations resorted to justifications that were ‘morality- and
competence-neutral’ (e.g. taste and lack of desire to eat meat).13 This may complement survey
12 Out of curiosity the survey data was analyzed for bolstering patterns by following Thogersen’s (2011) approach
(cf. Appendix H).
13 It has to be acknowledged that the manipulation of the private setting, which posed that the discussion would
cover taste perceptions of vegetarian products, may have invited participants to use taste-related arguments as justifications.
results by supporting the suggestion, that both – being moral and competent – can be socially dangerous. Last, the discussion results hint that the use of selfish justifications may not be the only way to avoid the elicitation of threats to the moral and competent self-concepts of peers. For instance, also highlighting one’s own flaws and shortcomings, may be a viable strategy to present oneself as more digestible for morally inferior peers.
Despite the lack of conclusive results, this study may complement the stream of literature on moral do-gooder derogation by contemplating this phenomenon from the angle of the moral actor (e.g. Bolderdijk et al., 2016; Cramwinckel et al., 2013; Minson & Monin, 2012; Monin et al., 2008; Zane et al., 2016). It may also add to literature on moral consumer motivations (e.g. Holmes et al., 2002; Thogersen, 2011) by suggesting that the (over)emphasis of selfish motives for one’s pro-sociality may be more than a mere act of self-deception so as to maintain one’s competent and rational self-concept.
Moral do-gooder derogation and undercover altruism may be considered as two sides of the same coin: On one side, there is the observer of a moral action who considers somebody else’s moral deeds as a threat to his moral self-concept. On the other side, there is the moral actor who may anticipate the threat he poses to the other party. Moral do-gooder derogation and undercover altruism may therefore both be considered as instruments to impede unfavorable social comparisons and thereby protect oneself from the opposite party.
Limitations & Future Research Directions
The main limitation of this study manifests itself in the fact that participants in the public condition reported that they had not taken others’ reactions into consideration when reporting their motivations. The manipulation in the public condition may have failed because it was not credible enough for participants. In future studies, it might help to expose participants to confederates before they start answering the survey. Thereby, the fact that others would see the answers would be made even more salient, and any doubt on whether a discussion will really take place would be eradicated. Another explanation is that participants may have considered others’ reactions but were reluctant to admit it.
‘private vs. public’ setting. However, other than the publicness of justifications, there may be additional factors that could trigger anticipated peer resentment and influence whether a moral actor cares enough about others’ reactions to change his justifications.
Thus, future research could take more personal dispositions (e.g. self-esteem, cf. Appendix E) into account that may influence the extent to which an individual is susceptible to taking others’ reactions to its moral superiority into consideration.
Similarly, the time since adoption of the moral behavior may be a promising avenue for future research. Before the beginning of the group discussion some participants mentioned that they were ‘used to defending themselves in front of meat eaters and would not care about it
anymore’. This suggests that vegetarians may get used to hostilities from meat eaters after some
time, so that the initial social threat from anticipated peer resentment might ‘wear off’. Thus, it may be interesting to investigate whether undercover altruism as response to moral do-gooder derogation is more pronounced among ‘novices’ as opposed to ‘old hands’ of moral minorities. Also the type and quality of the relationship between moral actor and observer may influence how a moral actor responds to his own superior status (Exline & Lobel, 2001). Specifically, Exline and Lobel (2001) find that in a troubled as opposed to a friendly relationship the outperformer is more likely to anticipate negative responses from the outperformed, which causes relationship rifts and avoidance. However, it could also be the other way around: One participant mentioned during the discussion that ‘she was afraid to turn
vegan because she was sure her friends would not approve of it’. Either way, participants in
this study might not have sufficiently cared about outperforming others since no relationship between them and the unknown discussion members existed. Similar to the experiment of Exline and Lobel (2001), future studies could let participants picture different kinds of persons with whom they either have a positive, or negative relationship when reporting their vegetarian motivations.
Managerial and Societal Implications
Even though the common quote ‘You are what you eat.’ may appear trivial, there is an undeniable truth inherent to it: What we eat is a reflection of our identities (cf. Bisogni et al., 2002). Consequently, being criticized for what you eat, may be as hurtful as being criticized for who you are. Since both morality and competence are integral parts of peoples’ identities, vegetarian participants in this study may have tried to appear less morally superior, but also less superior in terms of dietary competence in order to avoid resentment from their meat-eating discussion members.
For marketers this is a hint that their often very ‘dogmatic’ approaches to advertise vegetarian and vegan products as incredibly healthy (e.g. marketing vegan products as ‘detox’ or vegetarian meat as beneficial to a ‘balanced diet’), instead of moral, may not be appropriate either. Giving consumers the feeling that they fail in an important aspect of their life may motivate them to make up for it, but it may also cause defensiveness and rejection towards the advertised idea (Bolderdijk et al., 2016).
The results from the group discussion may suggest that advertising vegetarian and vegan products as tasty could be a safe possibility to promote them without eliciting downward social comparisons between vegetarians and meat eaters. Taste is a very subjective domain to evaluate food upon and therefore not disputable, as the saying ‘There is no accounting for taste’ suggests. If vegetarians emphasize that they find their diet very tasty, they may be confronted with less peer resentment, whereas meat eaters may not feel inferior in terms of morality and competence. On the contrary, research even suggests that individuals tend to strive for distinguishing themselves from the majority in matters of taste (Spears, Ellemers, & Doosje, 2009). Hence, promoting vegetarian dishes as tasty may even encourage more people to embrace a vegetarian diet; especially because food is not only supposed to provide the body with nutrients, but also to stimulate sensual pleasure. Some cuisines (e.g. Indian Curry) are vegetarian because of cultural reasons and are – despite being vegetarian – very popular among meat-eating consumers. Consequently, meat eaters may not shy away from vegetarian dishes as long as they are tasty.
Conclusion
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Appendices
Appendix A
Inclusion of empathy and self-esteem as potential moderators of the relationship between publicness and justifications.
The degree to which individuals anticipate peer resentment, could be moderated by dispositional differences between individuals. One such dispositional characteristic may be empathy which refers to ‘the capacity to experience and/or comprehend the emotion of another’ (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006, p. 589). One may expect that individuals that show high levels of empathy are better able to put themselves into the shoes of another person (i.e. the observer of a moral action). Consequently, they would also be more likely to anticipate that their own morality elicits downward social comparisons.
Auyeung and Alden's (2015) study on the relationship between an individual’s social anxiety and the empathy for social pain experienced by another person revealed that empathic accuracy (i.e. the accuracy with which the individual can predict another person’s feelings or mood state in situations of social pain, such as being cast out from a group) is positively influenced by the degree to which the individual itself is socially anxious.
On the one hand, they experience a great fear of being judged or evaluated by others and are more sensitive to social threats. Thus, they may also be more empathic for the damage they may cause to other people’s self-concepts by identifying themselves as a social (or moral) threat to them (cf. Auyeung & Alden, 2015). On the other hand, they are also more frightened of social pain themselves. Due to this heightened fear of being excluded or resented from an observer, they may be watching out more for potential social threats to themselves.
Appendix B
Appendix C
Confirmatory factor analysis of the ten items provided to measure participants’ justifications.
A confirmatory factor analysis with principal component extraction and VARIMAX rotation was conducted in order to verify the dichotomous distinction between pro-social and pro-self arguments. Factor analysis revealed two factors explaining 61.5 % of total variance. The first factor Pro-social is an average of the ratings on the four items reflecting selfless motivations to reduce one’s meat intake (α = .70, M = 6.00, SD = .96). The second factor
Pro-self is an average of the ratings on the four health-related items reflecting Pro-selfish motivations
(α = .80, M = 4.14, SD = 1.44).
The two additional selfish items taste and price have been dropped since they constituted a third factor with weak internal consistency (α = .59, M = 2.16, SD = 1.85). This may be explained by the fact that taste and price have been added with hindsight. To account for this, factor analysis was re-executed under the exclusion of the first 25 participants. Analysis again yielded a three-factor solution with no clear-cut distinction between social and pro-self arguments and even weaker internal consistency of the last factor including taste, price, and resources (α = .32, cf. Table 2). Thus, subsequent analyses were only executed with the
Pro-social and Pro-self subscales.
Table 2
3-factor-solution for justification arguments, excluding the first 25 participants from analysis.
Factor Name Items α
Appendix D
Appendix E
Conditional process analysis with empathy and self-esteem as moderators.
Model 9 (bias-corrected, 1000 bootstrap samples) of Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS Macro
was used for conditional process analysis. It was tested whether empathy and self-esteem moderated the relationship between publicness and anticipated peer resentment (i.e. Liking &
Respect).
Empathy, neither had a significant direct impact (β = -.003, t(87) = -.061, p = .95) on anticipated resentment, nor interacted with publicness (β = .010, t(87) = .16, p = .87). However, even though self-esteem did not interact with publicness (β = -.006, t(87) = -.083, p = .93), there was a significant direct effect (β = .13, t(87) = 2.67, p = .009) of self-esteem on anticipated resentment. Thus, higher levels of self-esteem led to higher ratings of Liking & Respect, and therefore to less anticipated resentment. A graphical representation of the mediation results is displayed in Figure 5.
Additionally, the sample was split so as to differentiate between participants with above average and below average levels of self-esteem (M = 23.62, SD = 3.74). Interestingly, participants with below average levels of self-esteem (n = 47) displayed slightly lower ratings on Pro-social (Mbelow = 5.90, SD = .99 vs. Mabove = 6.10, SD = .93;t(91) = -1.00, p = .32) and slightly higher ratings on Pro-self arguments (Mbelow = 4.21, SD = 1.32 vs. Mabove = 4.07, SD = 1.57; t(91) = .47, p = 0.64) as opposed to participants with above average levels of self-esteem (n = 46). Even though these differences were not statistically significant, this suggests that dispositional characteristics of an individual may determine if and to what extent a moral actor engages in undercover altruism to avoid the elicitation of downward social comparisons.
βdirect = -.20, ns β = -.019, ns Anticipated Resentment Publicness private (0) public (1) Justification pro-social pro-self β = -.42, ns
Figure 5. Non-significant mediated impact of the publicness of motivations on the
justification for moral behavior with the direct effect of self-esteem on anticipated resentment. * p < .05
Self-Esteem
Appendix F
Comparison of survey (i.e. private) justifications against discussion (i.e. public) justifications.
Despite best efforts, the manipulation in the public condition did not succeed to make participants consider their discussion partners’ reactions to their vegetarian motivations. Since participants in the survey generally did not take others’ reactions to their justifications into account, the survey was considered as private condition. Consequently, participants’ spontaneous justifications during the discussion (i.e. a real social situation) were treated as
public condition.
For this analysis only those participants that explicitly mentioned pro-social or pro-self justifications were included (n = 36). Based on these 36 participants’ spontaneous comments a new variable was created (Mdiscussion = .56, SD = .84) that was compared against the differential justification score (Msurvey = -1.87, SD = 1.50) used during the mediation analysis. In accordance with this score, pro-social motivations (i.e. animal welfare and environmental concerns) were coded as -1 and pro-self motivations (i.e. taste, price, health, lack of desire for meat) were coded as +1. Both scores were standardized (i.e. saved as Z-scores) and compared in a paired samples t-test.
Appendix G
Number and types of different justifications mentioned by participants during the group discussion.
Type of Motivation Number of Participants %
Pro-social 7 15.56
Pro-self 28 55.56
Taste 11 24.44a
Health 9 20.00a
No desire for meat 5 11.11a
Price 1 2.22a ‘Downplaying’ 7 15.56 Highlighting shortcomings 5 11.11a Bolstering 2 4.44a Culture 5 11.11 Total 45c 97.79b
a Percentages refer to proportion of all justifications used (n = 45) b Due to rounding the percentages do not add up to 100%
Appendix H
Bolstering of a vegetarian lifestyle with health-related benefits.
In Thogersen’s (2011) study participants tended to (over)emphasize selfish reasons (e.g. taste, quality), even though they had a strong universalist life orientation. Following his approach, it was analyzed in how far a strong environmentalist life orientation is related to the use of pro-social and pro-self justifications for adopting vegetarianism.
A 16-item scale was included in the questionnaire so as to assess the importance of several guiding values in participants’ lives. The 16 different values were rated on a 9-point scale ranging from ‘not at all important’ (0) to ‘very important’ (6). Values ‘opposed’ to principles guiding participants were rated (-1) and values of ‘supreme importance’ rated (7). An exploratory factor analysis with principal component extraction and VARIMAX rotation yielded four underlying factors explaining 66.3 % of total variance (cf. Table 3). The ratings of the respective items were averaged for each of the four factors.
In order to assess whether participants’ environmentalist values were predictive of pro-social and/or pro-self justifications, it was tested for the correlations between Environmentalism and the Pro-social and Pro-self subscales. Participants’ environmentalist values were significantly correlated to the use of social justifications (r(93) = .59, p < .01). Even if pro-self justifications were not significantly correlated with environmentalist values (r(93) = .14, p = .18), the positive coefficient may still suggest that higher environmentalist values might lead to slightly more pro-self justifications.
This hints that vegetarians may also try to find selfish arguments that provide rational support for their vegetarian lifestyle retrospectively. As suggested earlier, selfish rationalization
Table 3
Composition & description of the four factors underlying participants’ life orientations
Factor Name Values α M SD
Factor 1 Environmentalism respecting earth, unity with nature, protecting the environment, preventing pollution
.85 5.57 1.11
Factor 2 Equality & Justice helpful, influential, social justice, world at peace
.73 4.90 .97 Factor 3 Hedonism enjoying life, self-indulgence,
pleasure
.88 5.23 1.32 Factor 4 Power &
