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MORAL PIONEERS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE

DIFFUSION OF SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES

IN SOCIETY

Does the use of self-mockery increase the likability and

persuasiveness of moral pioneers?

by

Karin Frankenberger

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MORAL PIONEERS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE

DIFFUSION OF SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES

IN SOCIETY

Does the use of self-mockery increase the likability and

persuasiveness of moral pioneers?

Master Thesis

Completion Date: 20.06.2016

First Supervisor

Second Supervisor

Dr. Jan Willem Bolderdijk Prof. dr. ir. Koert van Ittersum

j.w.bolderdijk@rug.nl k.van.ittersum@rug.nl

Author

Karin Frankenberger, S2947676 MSc Marketing

Faculty of Economics and Business k.frankenberger@student.rug.nl

+31 653994438

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 3

Acknowledgements

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 4

Abstract

Moral pioneers – individuals who are the first ones to devote their actions to the greater good – are a stigmatized group in society. People expect moral pioneers to look down upon others and feel a threat to their positive self-concept when they compare themselves with moral individuals. In consequence, they resent moral pioneers and refuse to act in line with their choices. This lack of positive influence of moral pioneers may negatively affect the diffusion of sustainable practices, in a time in which it is more important than ever. Thus, in order to be able to facilitate the change towards a more sustainable society, moral pioneers have to know how to avoid eliciting resentment. This thesis examines self-mockery as a possible tool to achieve that.

The study results cannot confirm the effectiveness of self-mockery in reducing anticipated negative judgment or pioneer resentment. Anticipated negative judgment does not mediate the effect of self- mockery on pioneer resentment. However, in line with previous research, the results highlight that resentment has a negative influence on the probability that an observer complies with the example of a moral pioneer. In other words, the actions of moral pioneers may actually hurt the diffusion of sustainable practices. This highlights the importance of future research in this area. It is crucial to examine if another form of humor, for instance, can fulfil the role of making moral pioneers more likable and persuasive.

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 5

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ... 3

Abstract ... 4

Table of Figures ... 6

Introduction and Hypotheses ... 7

The reason why moral pioneers pose a threat to others ... 8

Moral do-gooder derogation and rebellion ... 8

Research on reducing threat to others’ sense of morality ... 9

Instrumentalizing self-mockery ... 10

Method ... 13

Stimuli and cover story ... 13

Procedure and questionnaire ... 14

Measurements ... 15

Plan of analysis ... 17

Results ... 18

Respondents ... 18

Anticipated negative judgment ... 18

Mediation analysis: Self-mockery, anticipated judgment and resentment ... 19

Compliance with the moral pioneer’s request ... 20

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 6

Table of Figures

Figure 1 – Self-mockery scene from Global Citizen's video ... 7

Figure 2 – Conceptual Model with hypothesized directions of effect ... 12

Figure 3 – Stimulus material for control condition (left) and self-mockery condition (right) ... 13

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 7

Introduction and Hypotheses

The non-governmental organization Global Citizen released a video for last Valentine’s Day with the title “There’s nothing sexier than being socially conscious” (Global Citizen, 2016). In the clip, seven men and one woman display in what way they are taking action to fight global problems. For example: “I’m working hard to end world hunger. What did your boyfriend do today – Netflix and Chill?”. The individuals portrayed in the clip are moral pioneers – individuals who are the first ones to devote their actions towards the greater good. They are being contrasted with others who do not take action to fight the world’s problems. The important part is that this happens in a humorous and, more precisely, self-mocking way: Most of the men lift obviously light weights (see Figure 1) or act in an exaggeratedly seductive manner. It becomes clear that the spokespersons in the video do not take themselves too seriously and do not mean to attack anybody.

Presumably, Global Citizen’s intention behind the clip has been to avoid a common reaction towards moral pioneers, namely that they have to face resentment. A typical example for this are vegans or Prius drivers, who are nowadays often being made fun of. Instead of successfully inducing others to critically scrutinize their actions and to consider following the pioneers’ example, they often find themselves to be resented by the majority.

This anecdotal evidence has been replicated in research: In the study of Monin, Sawyer, & Marquez (2008), participants dislike a rebel who refuses to participate in the same racist task that they completed. Similarly, in the study of Bolderdijk, Brouwer, & Cornelissen (2016), participants dislike somebody who had signed the same petition that they just refused to sign.

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The participants in both studies have an important thing in common: their involvement in the situation. They all had the exact same choice as the moral pioneer but did not act as morally as him. Consequently, they react in a hostile manner. How can that be explained?

The reason why moral pioneers pose a threat to others

According to Hoyer, MacInnis, & Pieters (2013), every individual has a certain view of himself and the way others see him, a so-called self-concept. Morality is very important for it – most people’s general desire is to be perceived as morally good (Monin, 2007).

In order to assess how moral they are themselves, individuals rely on the comparison with others in their environment (Monin & Jordan, 2009). Comparing one’s own actions to those of a moral pioneer easily makes the latter appear to be morally better. Consequently, pioneers are likely to pose a threat to the positive self-concept of those who compare themselves.

Even more important is that people often have the impression that moral pioneers negatively judge them and that they look down on all others. This anticipated negative judgment threatens their desired feeling of being moral (Minson & Monin, 2012; Monin, 2007). What is the response to such a threat? Monin (2007) labels it ‘do-gooder derogation’.

Moral do-gooder derogation and rebellion

According to Monin (2007), threatened individuals try to put down the source of threat by implying that the moral pioneer in question is incompetent and out of touch with reality, for instance. This is an attempt to avoid feeling less moral than him and thereby keeping up the own positive self-concept. Derogation becomes evident in condescending names like ‘do-gooder’ and ‘goody two-shoes’.

This reaction is especially strong and likely when individuals have the feeling that moral pioneers look down on them and feel superior. Minson & Monin (2012) prove the consequences of this anticipated negative judgment in their study about meat eaters’ ratings of vegetarians. They find that most meat eaters (erroneously) assume that vegetarians consider themselves as being morally superior. When participants assume that, they resent vegetarians: The associations with and ratings for them are particularly negative.

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 9

Bolderdijk et al. (2016) also rebel against the pioneers’ choices. This finding is in line with the results of Zane, Irwin, & Reczek (2015): The authors show that participants who resent the moral pioneer are also less likely to follow his example of taking a pledge. Why are those results so alarming?

Research indicates that it is much easier to convince the majority of adopting sustainable behavior when it is regarded as rather normal and when they see others engaging in it (Rettie, Burchell, & Barnham, 2014; Starr, 2009). Thus, moral pioneers are the ones needed to start the change towards a better world, by inspiring others to follow their example. Currently, there are still many global issues to be solved: The UN’s Sustainable Development Plan from the year 2015 aims, amongst others, to end extreme poverty and to permanently protect nature’s resources by 2030 (United Nations, 2015). Moral pioneers cannot be of any help in starting change if they elicit resentment among observers. And if their actions even lead to rebellion, they could actually hurt the diffusion of sustainable practices. It is thus important to answer the question how this negative outcome can be prevented.

Research on reducing threat to others’ sense of morality

The research results mentioned up to this point highlight that pioneers are likely to pose a threat to involved observers, who chose to not act morally in the same situation. There is little research yet on how to reduce the amount of threat to the own morality that an individual perceives. However, noteworthy results are revealed by Cramwinckel, van Dijk, Scheepers, & van den Bos (2013). In their study, participants taste a sausage and are then confronted with an ostensible fellow participant who refused to taste the same sausage for moral reasons. Similar to the already reported studies, participants dislike that refuser. The surprising finding here is that they do not dislike him if they had washed their hands before the experiment. Apparently, something as simple as the participants’ feeling of physical cleanliness can reduce the extent of threat to self-concept that they perceive. The authors explain that result by suggesting that cleanliness functions as physical depiction of one’s morality, it creates a buffer against threats to the own morality. Moreover, washing one’s hands washes away traces of past behavior, both in a physical and psychological way.

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 10

amount of threat. It is also important to shed light on ways how the moral pioneer himself can make his message less threatening to observers. Global Citizen is trying the self-mockery approach in the above described video – not taking themselves too seriously and not claiming to be superior. In line with that, the present research aims to shed light on whether self-mockery is an effective tool for moral pioneers to increase their likability and persuasiveness.

Instrumentalizing self-mockery

As established so far, the actions of moral pioneers can pose a threat to the positive self-concept of others because their morality is put into question. This holds especially true when pioneers appear to feel morally superior, which makes others expect negative judgment concerning their own morality. The answer is then frequently to resent moral individuals and to rebel against their choices.

Taking this into account, the response towards a moral pioneer might be less negative when he does not come across as feeling morally superior and judgmental towards others. A way to achieve that might be to emphasize that he is not a flawless human being and does not look down on others. A moral pioneer might accomplish that by using self-mockery, similar to the actors in the previously described video of Global Citizen.

Ungar (1984) describes self-mockery as a form of presenting oneself in a way that stands in contrast with self-enhancing presentations. The author states that it gives individuals the chance to reveal flaws without losing dignity. By engaging in self-mockery, they can show that they do not see themselves as being perfect or better than others. That serves as a powerful way to reduce perceived distance – it creates a feeling of equality to know that nobody is flawless. That outcome can be used, for instance, to “diffuse anticipated responses to stigmatized identities” (p. 129), thereby describing the exact purpose that is being researched in the present paper. Those insights suggest that a moral pioneer, who is easily perceived as being superior, is less likely to come across as judgmental when he uses self-mockery.

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 11

superior individual who does not. As reason for that, the authors suggest that the clumsiness makes the presumably superior person more approachable and likable.

The present research also features a ‘superior individual’ (as described in the following section ‘Method’). He is not superior in intelligence but in morality – he acts morally good in a way that most others choose not to. Based on the gathered insights, it is very likely that he elicits resentment by coming across as judgmental. The question is: Can this usually negative response be mitigated by him using self-mockery? Hypothesis 1 and its sub hypotheses formalize that relationship.

H1: The effect of self-mockery on pioneer resentment is mediated by the extent of negative

judgment anticipated by an observer. If a moral pioneer uses self-mockery, an observer anticipates less negative judgment from his side and feels less need to resent the moral pioneer.

- H1a: Self-mockery has a significant and negative influence1 on pioneer resentment.

- H1b: Self-mockery has a significant and negative influence on anticipated negative

judgment.

- H1c: Anticipated negative judgment has a significant and positive influence on pioneer

resentment.

The role of moral pioneers in the diffusion of sustainable practices and the problems accompanying their resentment have already been highlighted. It is therefore also necessary to investigate one step further: Does less resentment also mean that observers are more likely to follow the example given by a pioneer? Are moral pioneers thus more influential when they know how to avoid getting

resented?

The previously mentioned results (Bolderdijk et al., 2016; Zane et al., 2015; Monin et al., 2008) illustrate that observers who choose to dislike the pioneer also rebel against his choice. Why? According to self-perception theory (Bem, 1972, cited from Zane et al., 2015), people base their feelings and attitudes on their past behavior. Thus, if somebody resents a pioneer who acts morally on a certain topic, that person may infer from this resentment to not care much about that topic. Consequently, he is unlikely to follow the pioneer’s example in that case. Thus, it can be hypothesized that pioneers who elicit less resentment – thanks to self-mockery – are also more

1 Negative/ positive influence refers to a statistically negative/ positive relationship. In case of H

1a: Using

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influential. Hypothesis 2 formalizes this relationship and it will be investigated whether the effect also occurs in the present research.

H2: The observer’s resentment of the moral pioneer has a significant and negative effect on the

probability of him complying with the pioneer’s request.

The accompanying Conceptual Model including all directions of effect is shown below.

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 13

Method

Stimuli and cover story

The presented hypotheses are tested by means of an online survey in a between-subjects design with two conditions. The stimuli used to manipulate the conditions are two Facebook posts in which a moral pioneer, called Chris Bear, conveys his message. He does so either by using self-mockery (self-mockery condition) or without using self-mockery (control condition).

As involvement is an important factor in do-gooder derogation, the topic addressed in the stimuli is one that concerns everybody: buying ethically made clothes. Everybody can guess the bad conditions for factory workers but most choose to ignore this information while purchasing. Zane et al. (2015) also base their materials on this so-called willful ignorance – the tendency to avoid looking into unpleasant truths. Because of this tendency, the movie “The True Cost” is mentioned in the stimuli. It is a documentary from the year 2015 about the terrible and dangerous lives of factory workers (www.truecostmovie.com). The movie is very disturbing and not widely known yet, which makes it an interesting element to potentially spark interest for the topic of ethically made clothes.

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 14

truth” and refers to the movie “The True Cost”. Lastly, he tries to motivate his readers to buy

ethically made clothes, like he does.

All in all, this structure is assumed to lead to resentment towards Chris because he seems to feel better than others who do not buy ethically made clothes – the respondents in this case. A pretest confirmed that, based on this post, Chris is mostly disliked. The Facebook post for the control (derogation-inducing) condition is shown in Figure 3.

The self-mockery condition contains a small additional part (see highlighted section in Figure 3): “Btw, I’m not somebody who runs around telling everybody ‘Look, I’m saving the world!’ I’m just a guy who’s addicted to shopping, embarrassing as it is ;-)”. The intention here is to convince readers that Chris does not feel superior to others, that he just wants to share his story. The rest of the text is exactly the same as in the control condition, but the self-mockery part is assumed to counter the presumably negative feelings that the rest elicits. On top of that, Chris’ profile picture in this condition is Winnie the Pooh covered in honey. It is a small fun element regarding Chris’ last name (Bear), which also intends to convey that Chris is no person who feels superior to others.

If respondents knew from the beginning that their attitudes are of interest, they would possibly defend themselves against an attitude change or answer in a socially desirable manner. Thus, it is better to hide the interest in the attitude towards Chris and his behavior. Therefore, the study is introduced under the premise of researching how the length of a Facebook post affects text processing and memory. To make that cover more convincing, recall questions concerning the content of the Facebook post are placed throughout the questionnaire.

Procedure and questionnaire

In the following paragraph, the general procedure and questionnaire content will be reported. The specific questions can be found in the subsequent section ‘Measurements’ and a copy of the full survey is included in Appendix A.

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 15

order follows the results of Minson & Monin (2012), who find that meat eater’s ratings of vegetarians decrease when they consider first what vegetarians possibly think of them.

After evaluating Chris, respondents are asked about their compliance – the probability that they will change their shopping behavior in accordance with the suggestion in Chris’ Facebook post. Then they complete the attention check and have to recall the movie title (“The True Cost”) from the post, which implies that their memory is being tested. Afterwards, they can choose to watch the trailer for the movie or skip it. This serves both as an indicator for their interest in the topic and as measure of compliance. Then they are asked to fill in what they think the study is about, to probe for suspicions about the true study purpose. The questionnaire ends with demographic questions.

Measurements

Independent variable: The independent variable in the tested mediation model is ‘moral pioneer’s use of self-mockery’. The two conditions – with or without self-mockery – make it a dichotomous variable that is manipulated by showing one of the two Facebook posts.

Mediator: The mediator ‘observer’s anticipated negative judgment’ is based on the scale used by Minson & Monin (2012) and modified to the topic of ethically made clothes. Respondents answer the following statements on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (extremely immoral) to 7 (extremely moral): “I would say my shopping behavior is…”, “If Chris knew me, he would think that my shopping behavior is…”, “Most people who buy ethically made clothes are…”, “Most people who don’t buy ethically made clothes are…”, “Most people who buy ethically made clothes think that

they are…”, “Most people who buy ethically made clothes think that others are…”. The amount of judgment that respondents anticipate from Chris is measured as the difference

between respondents’ rating of the morality of their own shopping behavior (M = 3.64, SD = 0.99) and the morality rating they expect from Chris (M = 2.62, SD = 1.22), D = 1.02. Respondents thus rate the morality of their own shopping behavior about one scale-point higher on the Likert scale than they expect Chris to.

Dependent variables: The dependent variable ‘observer’s resentment of moral pioneer’ (related to H1) is measured based on the likability scale of Monin et al. (2008). Respondents indicate on a

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in self-esteem – high in self-esteem. Besides that, respondents answer on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (dislike very much) to 7 (like very much): “How much would you like to work on a class project with Chris?”, “How much would you like to Chris as a roommate?”, “How much would you like

Chris as a friend?”

Since the extent of resentment is of interest in this research, all 17 items are reverse-coded for the analysis: High values thus equal a high extent of resentment. The averaged items form a reliable scale (α = .92, M = 3.26, SD = 0.85). Respondents thus show moderate resentment towards Chris that is slightly lower than the scale mean of M = 4.00.

‘Observer’s compliance with moral pioneer’s request’ (related to H2) is measured on a 7-point

Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Respondents answer the following three questions to assess their likelihood of compliance: “Chris made me reconsider my shopping behavior.”, “The next time I go shopping, I’ll consider ethically made clothes.”, “The next time I go shopping, I’ll buy ethically made clothes.”. The averaged items form a reliable scale (α = .85, M = 3.39, SD = 1.25). Also here, the scale mean would be M = 4.00, so respondents show a moderate level of compliance that is slightly lower than that. The internal consistency of the compliance variable is already high but would be even higher if the item “Chris made me reconsider my shopping behavior” was analyzed separately. However, to better compare the results across all three datasets (see specification under ‘Results’ in section ‘Respondents’), also in the full dataset the compliance variable is calculated as the average of all three items.

As an additional measure of compliance, respondents can choose to watch the trailer for the movie “The True Cost” (after they had to choose the right movie name out of three options) or continue to the next questions. Their willingness to watch the movie is not only an indicator of interest in the topic but also of their willingness to face the story behind their clothes.

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 17

and respondents should not be aware of the fact that their attitudes are of interest, there is no manipulation check specifically concerning the self-mockery or control condition.

Additional questions: For the question that serves as attention check, respondents are asked about the last name of Chris and get the instruction to check ‘none of the above’ from the following choices (Fox, Bear, Wolf, none of the above). The correct answer in the context is ‘Bear’ but respondents are supposed to fill in ‘none of the above’ here.

Plan of analysis

The underlying mechanism that is to be analyzed in this research is whether the amount of anticipated negative judgment from the moral pioneer mediates the influence of self-mockery on pioneer resentment. Furthermore, it is of interest whether resenting the pioneer directly affects observers’ willingness to comply with his request.

For conducting the analyses, all variables are computed as described under ‘Measurements’. In order for the relationships in H1 to be proven as mediation, all three sub hypotheses (H1a – H1c)

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 18

Results

Respondents

In total, 195 respondents started the survey that was distributed via Facebook and 142 of them fully completed it. Four of them were excluded due to failing the manipulation check and/or spending the least amount of time on the page with the Facebook post (4-8 seconds). This is clearly too short to read the full text and look at the name and profile picture (the average across both groups is about 50 seconds). Failing already the first question, that asks what behavior Chris requests, shows that those respondents did not pay enough attention to produce valid data.

Consequently, the full dataset for analysis consists of 138 respondents who all passed the manipulation check. 42% of the respondents are male and 58% are female. 66% of all respondents, and therefore the majority, are in the age group of 18 – 24 years. The reported results in the following refer to the full dataset.

However, to ensure that the results are valid, also two reduced datasets were analyzed. One consists of only the 69 respondents (50%) who passed the attention check. The other one consists of those 89 respondents (65%) who voiced no or incorrect suspicions about the true purpose of the study. Noteworthy differences between the three datasets will be pointed out in the following.

Anticipated negative judgment

Looking at all items related to the mediator and calculating the differences between scores on items (similar to Minson & Monin, 2012), the following pattern emerges: Respondents rate their own morality higher (N = 138, M = 3.64, SD = 0.99) than they expect Chris to (M = 2.62, SD = 1.22). The difference between those two scores, D = 1.02, is the measure for the amount of negative judgment that respondents expect from Chris. Respondents in the self-mockery condition anticipate slightly less judgment from him (N = 70, M = 0.98, SD = 0.92) than respondents in the control condition do (N = 68, M = 1.12, SD = 1.00), t(136) = 1.16, p = .25. This direction is as hypothesized, although the effect is not significant2.

Furthermore, respondents perceive a difference between the morality of ethical shoppers (M = 5.61, SD = 0.80) and unethical shoppers (M = 3.53, SD = 0.96), D = 2.08. However, they anticipate that

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 19

ethical shoppers perceive that gap to be much larger, D = 3.85. This difference is the amount of negative judgment that unethical shoppers expect from ethical shoppers in general.

Mediation analysis: Self-mockery, anticipated judgment and resentment

In order to test H1 and its sub hypotheses, the PROCESS Macro of Hayes (2016, Model 4) is used

to analyze whether the effect of self-mockery on pioneer resentment is mediated by the extent of negative judgment anticipated by an observer (see Appendix B and C).

The results do not support H1, as none of the paths are significant. However, two of three directions

of effect are as hypothesized: Self-mockery is shown to have a negative direct effect on resentment, as specified in H1a (b = -.08, t(136) = -0.53, p = .60). The result indicates that the use of

self-mockery leads to less resentment of Chris – but the effect is not significant. Looking at the means: Respondents in the self-mockery condition express slightly less resentment towards Chris (M = 3.22, SD = 0.90) than respondents in the control condition do (M = 3.30, SD = 0.81). Furthermore, self-mockery has a negative direct effect on anticipated negative judgment, as specified in H1b (b = -.19, t(136) = -1.16, p = .25). This suggests that the use of self-mockery

reduces the amount of negative judgment that respondents anticipate from Chris, but the effect is not significant.

One direction of effect is counterintuitive and not as hypothesized in H1c: Anticipated judgment is

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 20

to this result, observers who anticipate that Chris negatively judges them are less likely to resent him. This effect is insignificant as well.

The reported results are similar in both other datasets, with the exception that in the no-suspicion dataset, the direct effect of anticipated negative judgment on resentment is in the hypothesized direction (positive). However, it is also insignificant.

Compliance with the moral pioneer’s request

Respondents in the self-mockery condition are more willing to comply with Chris’ request to buy ethically made clothes (M = 3.48, SD = 1.29) than their counterparts in the control condition are (M = 3.29, SD = 1.22), t(136) = -0.90, p = .37. However, there is no significant difference between the conditions.

As hypothesized in H2, resentment significantly predicts compliance (b = -.33, p < .001). How

strongly a pioneer is resented explains about 11% of the variance within compliance, R2 = .11, F(1, 136) = 16.70, p < .001. It illustrates that the more Chris is resented by an observer, the less likely it is that this observer complies with Chris’ request of buying ethically made clothes. Therefore, in line with the previously introduced self-perception theory, respondents might infer from their resentment towards Chris that they do not care about ethically made clothes. Based on that feeling, they are unwilling to comply with his request of starting to buy ethically made clothes. This finding is in line with the results of Bolderdijk et al. (2016), Zane et al. (2015) and Monin et al. (2008).

The results in both other sets are similar. Noteworthy is that in the no-suspicion dataset, resentment explains much more variance of compliance than in the other datasets.

Analyzing the willingness to watch the trailer for “The True Cost” reveals that 40% agreed to watch it, while 60% did not want to. There is no significant relation between the condition (self-mockery or control) and the willingness to watch the trailer (χ2(1) = 1.02, p = .31). Thus, respondents’

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General Discussion

In general, moral pioneers should be respected members of society – after all, they direct their actions towards the greater good. However, they have the tendency to come across as judgmental and most people feel their positive self-concept to be threatened when they compare themselves with moral individuals. This leads most likely to resentment and derogation of those ‘do-gooders’. Thus, moral pioneers should know how to avoid being perceived as a threat in order to be able to facilitate the change towards a more sustainable global society.

Following the example of a recent Global Citizen commercial, the present research examines self-mockery as one possible tool to achieve that. The hypothesized underlying mechanism (H1) is that

the use of self-mockery reduces the amount of negative judgment that an observer expects from the moral pioneer. If there is not much judgment anticipated, resenting the pioneer should not be necessary to maintain one’s positive self-concept. Moreover, less resentment is hypothesized to lead to a higher likelihood of the observer’s compliance (H2).

Moral pioneers – a stigmatized group in society

As mentioned in the introduction, for example Prius drivers and vegans are widely made fun of for their consumption choices, although many of them are guided by environmental motives. Especially vegans are stereotyped as people who feel superior to others, which is why they often face resentment.

The research results of Minson & Monin (2012) replicate this in the context of meat eaters and vegetarians: They find that while meat eaters judge themselves as being slightly less moral than vegetarians, they expect that vegetarians perceive this gap as much larger. The present research finds exactly the same: Respondents judge themselves as being less moral than ethical shoppers (D = 2.08) but expect that ethical shoppers perceive the difference between themselves and unethical

shoppers as much larger (D = 3.85).

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Resenting moral pioneers

The results of the present study do not confirm that anticipated negative judgment mediates the effect of self-mockery on resentment. While the means actually show the hypothesized difference between the self-mockery and control condition, none of the relationships in the mediation model are significant. Respondents seem to dislike Chris in general, regardless if he uses self-mockery or not.

A reason for that might actually be the topic of ethically made clothes itself. It was selected because it ensures everybody’s involvement – presumably everybody knows about the bad conditions for factory workers but most choose to ignore that while buying clothes. But this involvement also leads to a difficulty: almost everybody already has arguments against buying ethically made clothes. Based on responses from the conducted pretest, those could be, for instance: “Ethically made clothes are too expensive, I don’t have that much money.”, “Is there actually something that is truly ethical?”.

Holding this attitude allows people to maintain a positive view on their morality without actually having to buy ethically made clothes. Therefore, respondents might not have let the information about Chris’ ethical consumption get too close to them because of their already formed excuses why they cannot do the same. Nevertheless, they rather dislike Chris – presumably because he comes across as judgmental.

(Not) following the example of moral pioneers

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Limitations

Naturally, the present study has some limitations that need to be addressed. First of all, the majority of respondents are young adults between the age of 18 and 24. While buying ethically made clothes and related consumption choices should be an option for everyone, it still has to be noted that there are monetary constraints. Many people do not even consider ethical alternatives because of their usually higher price. While this can simply be a defensive attitude, as illustrated above, it is of course also a valid point that cannot be neglected. Currently, many consumers cannot pay the price of ethically made clothes, even if they wanted to. Therefore, a greater variation in respondents’ age might produce different results.

Secondly, the self-mockery manipulation had to be a subtle one, in order to not reveal to respondents what the exact study purpose is. While this was a necessary step, it also complicated measuring the strength of the self-mockery manipulation. Because of that, it is difficult to assess why the means are as hypothesized but not significant.

Third, people base their judgment of others on many different impressions. Confronting respondents with a real person, either directly or in a video, has the risk of distracting the focus away from the manipulation. Therefore, the present research uses a Facebook post which does not even contain a profile picture of Chris himself. That stimulus design ensures that Chris’ appearance does not influence respondents. However, it naturally leaves room for the speculation if results

would differ in a more real-life situation.

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Future Outlook

Managerial implications

The approach of Global Citizen’s Valentine’s day video is rather innovative in the world of marketing for a good cause. Many organizations rely on a different approach: They emphasize that consumers are not behaving correctly with regard to the topic in question (Reich & Robertson, 1979). They frequently rely on guilt, fear or shame to promote their causes (Brennan & Binney, 2010). When taking into account the importance of morality for an individual’s positive self-concept, it is easy to explain why that should be rather ineffective. Consumers who perceive marketing content as a threat to their morality will not buy the products or engage in the behavior promoted by such campaigns. This may also explain the lack of success of so-called ‘green marketing’ so far (Dennis, Peattie, & Crane, 2005). Those authors’ qualitative research results demonstrate that what has been called ‘green marketing’ was neither much about the environment, nor exactly marketing. They state that actual sustainable marketing still needs to be figured out in order to have the desired impact towards a more sustainable society.

How to figure it out? The present research could not confirm self-mockery as powerful tool to reduce the frequent resentment towards moral pioneers. The Global Citizen video did also not only receive positive feedback: Some Facebook users insulted the video and its actors. They apparently still felt threatened, despite the self-mockery, as did the respondents in the present study. Nevertheless, the importance of changing social marketing campaigns remains. Similar to moral pioneers, marketeers need to learn how to avoid challenging the positive self-concept of others and eliciting rebellion by doing so.

Future research

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References

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Appendix

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Appendix C: SPSS output of mediation analysis

Run MATRIX procedure:

************** PROCESS Procedure for SPSS Release 2.15 ******************* Written by Andrew F. Hayes, Ph.D. www.afhayes.com

Documentation available in Hayes (2013). www.guilford.com/p/hayes3 ************************************************************************** Model = 4 Y = Resentment X = Selfmock M = AJ_Chris Sample size 138 ************************************************************************** Outcome: AJ_Chris Model Summary R R-sq MSE F df1 df2 p ,0986 ,0097 ,9243 1,3341 1,0000 136,0000 ,2501 Model

coeff se t p LLCI ULCI constant 1,1176 ,1166 9,5865 ,0000 ,8871 1,3482 Selfmock -,1891 ,1637 -1,1550 ,2501 -,5128 ,1346 ************************************************************************** Outcome: Resentment Model Summary R R-sq MSE F df1 df2 p ,0689 ,0048 ,7363 ,3224 2,0000 135,0000 ,7249 Model

coeff se t p LLCI ULCI constant 3,3483 ,1347 24,8580 ,0000 3,0819 3,6147 AJ_Chris -,0462 ,0765 -,6036 ,5471 -,1976 ,1052 Selfmock -,0861 ,1468 -,5866 ,5585 -,3765 ,2042 ************************** TOTAL EFFECT MODEL **************************** Outcome: Resentment

Model Summary

R R-sq MSE F df1 df2 p ,0455 ,0021 ,7328 ,2819 1,0000 136,0000 ,5963 Model

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Moral pioneers and their role in the diffusion of sustainable practices in society 38 ***************** TOTAL, DIRECT, AND INDIRECT EFFECTS ******************** Total effect of X on Y

Effect SE t p LLCI ULCI -,0774 ,1458 -,5309 ,5963 -,3656 ,2109 Direct effect of X on Y

Effect SE t p LLCI ULCI -,0861 ,1468 -,5866 ,5585 -,3765 ,2042 Indirect effect of X on Y

Effect Boot SE BootLLCI BootULCI AJ_Chris ,0087 ,0203 -,0132 ,0783

******************** ANALYSIS NOTES AND WARNINGS ************************* Number of bootstrap samples for bias corrected bootstrap confidence intervals: 5000

Level of confidence for all confidence intervals in output: 95,00

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