“For a Worthy Cause!” Insights on the relevance of causal attribution in purchase decisions that contain CM - products

“For a Worthy Cause!”

Insights on the relevance of causal attribution in purchase

decisions that contain CM - products

By Anne Mareike Flaswinkel

Master Thesis

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business

MSc Marketing Management

Anne Mareike Flaswinkel

E-mail: A.M.Flaswinkel@student.rug.nl

Student Number: 2954079

dr. M.C. (Marijke) Leliveld (first supervisor)

dr. Y. (Yannick) Joye (second supervisor)

“For a Worthy Cause!”

i PREFACE

This thesis is the final proof of competence for obtaining the Master of Science (M.Sc.)

degree in Marketing Management from the University of Groningen and the final puzzle

piece of my academic education. No one will argue that good writing requires only knowledge

of a subject, it also requires writing skills and stamina. Writing this thesis has been my

greatest academic challenge so far. During the last months I experienced feelings of

proudness as well as feelings of uncertainty. A very big thanks goes to everyone who never

stopped having a sympathetic ear for me and kept encouraging me. Several persons have

contributed academically and with support to this thesis. I would like to thank all the people

that offered me their hands during this exciting and difficult year. I would like to take this

opportunity to express my gratitude to my supervisor dr. Marijke Leliveld, who always

provided useful guidance throughout the whole thesis writing process. I would also like thank

my second supervisor, dr. Yannick Joye, for his remarks. In addition, I would like to

specifically thank my thesis group, who provided great ideas and feedback. And I would like

to thank my mother who supported me while spending the year in the Netherlands.

At the end, thanks to you, reader. If you are reading this line after the others, you at least read

ii

Table of contents

Preface i

List of tables iii

List of figures iii

Abstract………... 2

Introduction... 3

Overview and Conceptual Model ……….………... 16

Methods……….………... 18

Participants, Design and Procedure... 19

iii

List of Tables

Table 1: Number of Participants per Condition... 20

Table 2: Means and Standard Deviations of the Causal Attribution Measure... 23

Table 3: Means and Standard Deviations of the MSI Measure………... 24

Table 4: Means and Standard Deviations of the Moral Emotion Measure... 25

Table 5: Means and Standard Deviations of the Attitude Measure... 26

List of Figures

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“

For a Worthy Cause!”

Insights on the relevance of causal attribution in purchase decisions that

contain CM - products

Abstract:

In order to improve corporate performance by helping worthy causes, a growing number of companies is engaging in cause-related marketing (CM) activities. Purchase-related CM refers to campaigns where a donation is dependent on a purchase decision of a consumer. While many studies investigated in the question whether and when CM efforts influence consumer choices, little evidence exists that is directly addressing the nature of purchase decisions regarding products. Presumably, the success of CM-campaigns reflects how favourable a company's support of a cause is perceived. However, when it comes to decision making processes, one important factor is the attribution of causes. People are constantly searching for reasons to explain outcomes of decision making processes and this search also holds in purchase decision processes. Based on the attribution theory and previous findings on the moral self-image (MSI), the present research hypothesizes and also shows that there is an influence of causal attribution on the purchase decision of CM-products. Furthermore, this research explores the role of causal attributions for moral emotions after a purchase and how the attribution of causes for buying a CM-product affects the MSI. An online survey was designed to measure the influence of causal attribution in situations where CM-products and Non-CM-products are offered. The study was done with a 2 (Causal Attribution; decision vs. force) X 2 (Product; CM-product vs. Non-CM-product) between subject experimental design, showing a significant interaction effect of the product type and the causal attribution on the moral emotion scale. The present thesis project provides valuable implications for marketers in the cause-related marketing domain. Offering explanations for consumer’s reactions after being exposed to purchase decisions containing CM-products and Non-CM-CM-products, this research can be used to improve CM-campaigns.

- 3 - Introduction

Melanie is content with herself today. She has just come back from a shopping trip and has bought a laundry detergent. Buying this laundry detergent included a donation for children’s education in India. While searching for washing agents in the supermarket, Melanie was provided with sufficient choice including some cheaper products without the donation feature. Nevertheless, Melanie decided on buying the more expensive product that included the good deed of donating. Carla has also been in town today and she had also heard about the new campaign of the company “swift” that is donating to children in India. However, this product was not available in her favourite supermarket, thus Carla purchased another laundry detergent. As she considers it a result of the circumstances that was preventing her from buying the cause-related product, she has no compunction about having purchased something else. She is content with her purchase. She is simply ascribing the outcome of this situation to external causes and suppressing any other thoughts on it.

Melanie however tells her mother about the campaign and the engendered good feelings she has now because of having been able to help. She even talks about her lack of understanding for people who buy any other laundry detergent because they could have otherwise helped in such an easy way.

The presented situation illustrates how consumers can behave in purchase

situations that include products that are linked to a cause (i.e. that are claiming to support

a good cause by giving a donation for a sold product) in the variety of choices. The laundry

detergent that included the donation was just one of the options, and due to the lack of

availability, one of the women in our example did not buy it. The lack of availability is an

external attribution of causes, while the active decision on buying the product with the

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are thus important drivers of consumer behaviour. For the attribution of causes for actions,

it is crucial to know which circumstances the consumer can make responsible for successes

or failures. Causal attribution does not have to correspond to the objective truth. In the

given example, the lack of availability which forced Carla not to buy the cause-related

product is of course an obstacle and in Carla’s opinion it was just a matter of circumstances

but objectively seen one could say that she would have had some other possibilities to buy

the cause-related product if she had a big desire to do that. One might say that it looks like

she might have already not intended to buy the CM-product. This paper investigates in the

role of these kinds of causal attributions in purchase decisions which include products with

relation to charity.

Attribution Theory

Before getting into more detail on how attributions are relevant in consumer

behaviour, you will first read more about attributions in general and about their purpose

for people’s self-concepts. Within attribution theory the influence of cognition and

emotion together on behaviour is addressed (Weiner, 2000). When we look at the world

from an attribution theory perspective we can see that people are constantly searching for

reasons to explain why some outcome actually turned out the way it did. An attribution is

the process of assigning a cause to a specific factor (Peterson et al, 1982). The term “causal

attribution” can be defined as a cognitive procedure used by humans to provide reason to own actions. These causal attributions can vary along several dimensions. People can

attribute the reason for success or failure to themselves (internal attribution) or to other

people (external attribution) (Kanning, 2000). People make attributions about their

behaviours on a daily base. We sometimes use external attributions to explain decisions

although the actual reason for the behaviour was not an external one (also see the example

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of significance for a current situation. Even when there is no causal relationship, people

tend to see cause and effect relationships (Heider, 1958).

To put it differently, the internal attribution describes the process of assigning the

cause of a behaviour or an outcome to own internal characteristic, while the external

attribution describes the process of assigning the cause of a behaviour or an outcome to

circumstances that are not controllable by the individual person. When we explain the

behaviour of others we look for enduring internal attributions, such as personality traits.

One theory used as an explanation for such behaviour patterns is the theory of the

self-value protection. People search for information about themselves that increase the self-value

they assign to the self and they avoid information that threatens this value. (Dauenheimer,

Stahlberg, Frey, Petersen, 2002). The more desirable the outcome of an action seems to be,

the more we are inclined to attribute the cause to internal rather than external reasons

(Heider, 1958).

Miller and Ross (1975) point out that people’s lives are driven by the faith in their

self-esteem. Self-esteem refers to the extent to which we accept or approve of ourselves, it

is an assessment of self-worth. We assume ourselves to be special and individualistic and

we base this assumption on values we ascribe to our own self. Based on the desirability of

the values or character traits that we believe to recognize, the attribution of this traits and

values gains importance for our self-concept. In situations of own failure abstruse external

explanations are found and in times of success we believe that we are responsible for the

success. Our idea of self-esteem is affecting how we perceive the world surrounding us. In

addition, it leads us to expectations of self-effectiveness. As an example just imagine a

situation in which you took an exam. When you successfully passed it, you might say “I

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To reason our decisions in such a way that they make us feel responsible for a good

outcome of an action, is part of the so-called “self-serving bias” (Campbell & Sedikides,

1999). The self-serving bias describes the tendency of people to attribute success and good

characteristics to themselves. In addition, this bias can explain, why we sometimes put

more emphasis on internal cues when an outcome seems desirable than we do when the

outcome of exactly the same action seems less desirable. Several decades of research in

social psychology show that the self-serving bias happens in our daily lives for example at

school, at the workplace, in relationships or sports. The totality of the individual's thoughts

and feelings having reference to himself as an object is called “self-concept” (Rosenberg,

1982). We want to have a positive self-concept and appreciate facts that positively

influence that concept. Within this thesis, the terms ‘self-concept’ and ‘self-esteem’ are to

be considered like these definitions by Rosenberg. The desire to maintain this positive

self-concept is an underlying mechanism causing the self-serving bias.

In sum it can be mentioned that all the given examples have something in common.

The common ground is that people view positive outcomes as primarily internally caused

but frequently view negative outcomes as externally caused. Specifically, when positive

outcomes can be attributed to internal cues, people are more prone to emphasize these

internal reasons. Heider (1958), who said that in ambiguous situations, attributions are

influenced by a person’s needs or wishes, introduced this concept. Rejecting the validity

of negative feedback, people frequently overlook their faults and failures as they are

protecting the ego from threat and injury.

Consumers are repeatedly inclined to positively evaluate themselves. Compared

with the strengths of other people, the own strengths seem to be something special and

compared to mistakes of other people the own mistakes are regarded as normal. Many

people believe to have a larger amount of positive characteristics and a smaller amount of

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the rest is called „Above Average Effect “(Dauenheimer, Stahlberg, Frey & Petersen,

2002). We can often see the term “self-serving justifications” as a description of a process

of providing reasons for questionable behaviours in such a way that they make a person

feel better about him- or herself. There is quite some research which demonstrates how the

motivation for self-enhancement can influence people’s judgements and behaviours

(Kruglanski, 1996) and therefore these motivations for self-serving justifications can

explain in part the above average effect. We can connect this to the example in the

introduction. Melanie felt better about herself after she had purchased the detergent that

was giving the donation. She attributed the cause of buying to herself which helped her to

enhance the value she attributes to herself.

As already mentioned, I will now come back to the relation of these theories to

consumer behaviour. When it comes to purchasing behaviour, the attribution theory can

serve as a source of important insight to help explaining how consumers decide on buying

an item. Additionally, this theory can help a lot if we want to find out how consumers feel

after they have been in some way forced to buy a specific product and why they feel that

way. If we believe that the outcome of a purchase decision will be positive and if we have

the possibility to attribute the responsibility of this outcome to ourselves, we will be more

likely to do a purchase. It makes a difference to whom the moral achievements are

attributed. Especially when it comes to situations that are including products which to some

extent have moral aspects.

Cause-related marketing

In the introduction-example, one company is donating for every product purchased

by a customer. Campaigns that communicate donations are part of cause-related marketing

(CM) which represents a mutually beneficial collaboration between a corporation and a

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and the implementation of marketing activities, which include an offer of the firm to

contribute to a designated cause. CM thus is the integration of corporate social

responsibility (CSR) activities in the marketing communications of a company by linking

the company’s products to a social cause. With the growing significance of CSR, organisations are expected to offer additional service to society and not only aiming to

maximize their shareholder value.

When engaging in cause-related Marketing activities, the firms are offering two

distinct positive outcomes for one price. The offered donation is done when customers

engage in revenue-providing exchanges. CM is specified as a marketing strategy, different

from sales promotion or sponsorship (Varadarajan & Menon, 1988, Andreasen, 1996).

Webb and Mohr (1998, 227) view cause-related marketing as a strong marketing

communication tool that can be used for different goals of a profit organization. Such goals

are for example the enhancement of the corporate image, the increase of brand awareness,

gaining national visibility or the work against negative publicity. Adkins (1999) defines

CM as a commercial activity. CM in this case is thus defined as a partnership between

profit and nonprofit organizations. This idea is shared by Daw (2006) who points out that

those CM initiatives provide benefits for both profit and non-profit organizations. There

are many moral aspects in business world which are relevant to consumers. Consumer

interest in socially responsible firms is increasing nowadays. In a decision making process

consumers do not only consider traditional product characteristics but also one or several

ethical issues related to the product (Harrison et al., 2005). In addition, we can assume that

due to the aspect of doing good, moral considerations are getting increasing relevance

when a consumer has to decide whether to purchase a CM-product or not. Environmental

disasters, food crises or third world problems are getting rising attention in our fast

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to create shareholder and social value, connect with a range of constituents and

communicate the shared values of both organizations (the profit and the non-profit ones)1.

Bringing cause-related marketing and attribution theory together

Specifically, when actively deciding to buy a CM-product, an internal attribution

of causes for the purchase may seem more desirable to the consumer due to the fact that

he or she thereby can increase a positive self-concept. In 2006 Kahn and Dhar conducted

a study in which participants who had first been asked to imagine doing a morally “good”

action scored higher on statements like ‘‘I am helpful’’ than did participants who had not

imagined previously performing a good action. It therefore can be supposed that an internal

attribution in case of purchasing a CM-product increases the feeling to be “a good person”.

Another study that looked at the interplay of the view of the moral-self and charitable

actions is the one conducted by Merritt, Effron and Monin (2010). They first asked

participants to describe their character while using positive traits and they asked another

group of people for the same thing, but this second group had to use negative character

traits. They found that people who had to describe themselves by using negative character

traits subsequently were more willing to make a donation. This outcome was assumed to

be caused by a change in the view of their own moral self. After having described

themselves by using negative character traits, the participants strived to arise good feelings

about their character. In a similar vein, we argue that buying a CM-product, and thus

helping a charity, can have a positive influence on how people feel about themselves. This

will particularly be true if they attribute the reasons for the purchase of a CM-product to

the own self which can create a positive picture of personal traits, feelings, abilities or other

personal factors. It can therefore be assumed that people who think in terms of the

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serving bias also have the tendency to attribute reasons for ‘good behaviour’, in which they

engaged, more internally than externally. Even in a situation where external reasons are

rather forcing people to do good, they might be prone to attribute causes to internal cues

in order to enhance the self. If a CM-product is the only product in stock, this is an example

for an external force which leads the customer to perform a morally good action, still the

purchase can increase the value the customer attributes to the self if the customer

emphasizes internal cues.

Based on these former studies and definitions I propose the following hypothesis:

H1-a: When actively deciding on buying a cause-related product, the

consumers will take the opportunity to attribute the causes to the self

(i.e., internal attribution), and put more emphasis on having decided to

buy the product by themselves (internal cues) than on external cues.

H1-b: When being forced to buy a CM-product, consumers will put

relatively less emphasis on external cues than in the

.

These two hypotheses focus on how consumers might react when an outcome of a

purchase situation seems to be desirable or seems to be connected to positive personal

characteristics. But how might a situation differ, when the outcome of an action or

imagined interferences are undesirable? Take the example of Carla, who did not buy the

CM-product. Due to the possibility of externally attributing the causes, the situation does

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can also evince the well-known example of a consumers who blame products or even the

selling store in cases of failure rather than an own mistake in product usage to show that

attribution is coloured by a person’s desires. Thus it can be concluded that consumers are prone to use external explanations if the attribution of causes to their own self seems

undesirable to them. This conclusion is also supported by a central outcome of research on

decision making. In situations, like the one Carla was in, people rely on simplifying

strategies, or cognitive heuristics such as the mentioned self-serving justifications

(Bazerman, 2002). Jones and Davis (1965) described that the perceived consequences of

behaviour influence human decision making, and also the way we attribute reasons. When

we believe that an outcome puts our decisions in a bad light, we search for a possibility to

externally attribute the causes for this outcome. Our attention is very often focused on

accounting for successful or failed outcomes and based on these outcomes we start

reasoning (Heider, 1958). When observing a negative outcome of other people’s decisions,

we tend to assign it to a stable disposition (personality trait or attitude) of the other person

(Jones & Davis, 1965). We have a tendency to explain the behaviour of other people by

their own personal traits, but when it comes to our own behaviour we often start to explain

it in such a way that we can view ourselves as having positive traits and we avoid anything

that threatens the picture of ourselves which we have in mind (Snyder, Stephan, &

Rosenfield, 1976). This perspective explains, why people are frequently emphasizing

external cues in situations, where they feel the threat of being viewed in a bad light.

Connected to the example in the introduction, it can be assumed that Carla would not put

emphasis on internal causes for not buying the product but on external ones.

Motivation to externally attribute causes

It is always hard to say whether a decision is morally right. Even when we try to

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influence how we process an information and thus they can influence the way we might

behave in the future. Behaviours and decisions can be biased towards the goal of

maintaining self-worth. This perspective can be called the “motivational” perspective

(Dunning, 1999). Due to these former findings we suggest that people who do not buy a

product that has a connection to charity will assign the cause of “not-buying” to external factors. If they can attribute the causes to external cues, they do not have to face the

possible threat to their own self-concept and they can keep positive feelings about

themselves.

H2-a: When being forced not to buy a CM-product, consumers will take

the opportunity to externally attribute the cause of not buying it and put

relatively more emphasis on the external cues (i.e., external attribution)

than on internal cues

H2-b: When actively deciding not to buy a CM-product, consumers will

put less emphasis on internal than on external cues

Buying for charity and the moral self-image

How does the attribution of causes influence the perception of the self? In this

section we will give a more concrete exploration of the moral self-image by explaining

briefly how it is examined in recent theories. Further on we will describe the way in which

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We continuously compare the perception of ourselves with social standards and

norms. If we perceive our own self to be discrepant from standards, a negative effect will

occur (Sedikides, 1992). The way we view ourselves will be positively affected, however,

if after a comparison we find the self to be congruent with standards (McDonald, 1980).

The motivation to act altruistically has been in focus of various disciplines during the last

decades. A considered question is the one about what influences the view of self on moral

dimensions. So how does for example the purchase of a cause-related product influence

how we view ourselves?

Take the case of Melanie again. After donating, she reports a good feeling and has

positive emotions. In other words, she feels good about her moral self. In literature, this

concept is known as the moral self-image (MSI; Jordan, Leliveld & Tenbrunsel, 2015). A

study by Jordan, Leliveld, and Tenbrunsel (2015), in which they also introduced the

concept of the MSI, found that the MSI was positively related to symbolic moral identity

and negatively related to moral disengagement. Therefore, we suppose that buying for

charity might affect people’s perceptions about their moral self and lead to increases in the

MSI due to showing moral engagement. In Melanie’s case, her moral self-image increases.

The MSI can be defined as a person’s dynamic moral self-concept and depends on

feedback from the social world and people’s reflections of their own moral behaviour. It

is important to mention that the MSI is subjective in nature due to the fact that it is not a

measure of the strength of one's moral judgments and that it is not measuring the quality

of moral behaviour but rather the feeling that a person has about his or her own morality.

Additionally, a central point to our self-understanding is the belief in our own moral

integrity and thus we are tempted to shield it from refutation (Bandura, 1999). Consumers

desire to see themselves as moral actors and look for cues that reinforce this perception.

The MSI however should not be confused with the emotions people have when

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emotions are psychological and physical reactions to a particular event. In case of donating,

some special kind of emotions can affect the feelings people have after buying

cause-related products. Such emotions linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a

whole or of one person (other than the donating one) are called moral emotions (Haidt,

2003). Moral emotions provide the motivational force to do good to others and act in a

moral way (Kroll & Egan 2004). As an extension of former findings I argue that buying

for charity might affect people’s perceptions about their moral self and lead to more positive moral emotions. We will investigate in the following hypothesis:

H3-a: Buying a CM-product and internally attributing the evoking

conditions for the purchase will more positively affect a consumer’s

moral emotions than buying a CM-product and externally attributing

the evoking conditions.

H3-b: Actively deciding to buy a CM-product will more positively

influence the moral self-image than being forced to buy the

CM-product.

However, not only positive emotions can arise when it comes to cause-related marketing.

What about the “not-buying situation”? Will the MSI also be influenced if a cause-related product is not bought?

Imagine yourself in a situation like the one Carla was in. You normally support the idea of

buying CM-products. You aim to purchase a bottle of water from a brand which is offering

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see this bottle of water and quickly buy another water brand. You would not ascribe the

cause for not buying the product to your own failure but to external factors (e.g. too

difficult to find). Thereby you can protect yourself from threats. Self-serving judgments

do not require much effort and come to mind almost immediately (Epley&Caruso, 2004),

which is why we assume that buying cause-related products will make people feel good

about themselves. Most humans view themselves as competent and deserving which is

why they are not always ready to appreciate the extent of their own biases and thus not

able to overcome them (Chugh et al, 2005).

The theory of self-concept maintenance states that humans are willing to forgive

their own ethical misbehaviour as long as it is sufficiently small and falls below a threshold

that does not threaten their self-concept (Ruedy&Schweitzer, 2010). Consumers do a lot

in order to protect their self-worth and they strive to maintain a phenomenal experience of

the self that is competent, stable, good and morally adequate (Steele,1988). We assume

that people will guard their moral self-image in situations when their self-concept is

threatened. There will be external attributions strengthened by the self-serving bias in order

to maintain a positive self-image, which leads to the next hypothesis:

H4-a: In case of being forced, not buying

a CM-product will affect a

consumer’s moral emotions less when externally attributing the

evoking conditions than when internally attributing the evoking

conditions.

- 16 - Overview and conceptual model

This section presents an illustration of the previously described processes. In our

experimental design, we manipulated whether the choice for either a CM-product or a

‘Non-CM-product’ was forced or not. In case we forced a decision, we manipulated whether the participants had to buy Product A (the CM-product) or Product B.

Contributing to existing research

There has in fact been research on the interaction of biases and ethical behaviour,

however there is a lack in research on the question how CM-campaigns have differing

influences on moral emotions depending on the attribution of causes. Many researchers

have been quite silent with implications for products in the moral domain. The findings of

this thesis should add new insights valuable for cause-related campaigns. As it can be

helpful for developing successful CM-activities to get information on the connection of

these activities to the MSI, with our study we are going to add to the previous research and

show the relation between the purchase of CM-products and the MSI and moral emotions.

In addition, we will observe the role of the self-serving bias in moral reasoning and the

changes in the MSI and changes in moral emotions depending on attribution possibilities.

By testing the interaction between buying for charity and the MSI, we contribute to the

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Figure 1 Conceptual model

The objective of this figure is to show the connection of the described variables in

an abstract way so that the basic process gets understandable. We studied how buying a

CM-product, compared to a regular product, makes people feel. Specifically, we looked at

how being forced to purchase one of the products or having an own choice moderates

people’s MSI, emotions and motivations. Causal-Attribution-Theory argues that people are prone to ascribe competences for seemingly desirable outcomes to themselves while

attributing causes for seemingly undesirable outcomes to external factors. We predict that

the actual causal attribution, the MSI, motivations and moral emotions will be positively

affected by an active decision of buying a CM-product. We also predict that the effect will

be relatively smaller in situations where people are forced to buy exactly the same product.

In addition, we propose that the self-serving bias will moderate the effect of the attribution

possibilities (decision: forced vs. own decision) on the actual attribution. In case that the

outcome of the purchase is perceived to be related to positive character traits of the buyer,

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this emphasis if the outcome of the situation might be connected to negative character

traits.

Methods

General overview In the study, we examine how the causal attribution of buying or

not-buying a CM-product is related to changes in a consumer’s moral emotions. The

moral-self-image is, as mentioned in previous chapters, based on subjective evaluation; therefore,

it is important to gather individual responses. In order to find out how moral emotions

change, we need to ask people and it is not possible just to collect facts or to observe

changes in emotions. As this research question requires the collection of a high amount of

data, a questionnaire is the best method to use as the parameters “actual attribution”,

“Motivation”, “moral emotions” and “MSI” can be measured for a group of people. One additional challenge is to identify the psychological mechanisms that are

driving the purchase behaviour. We try to identify these mechanisms by using variation in

the variables “Purchase of CM-product” and “Attribution Possibilities”. Participants are presented with different scenarios interrelated to buying for charity. Within these situations

there are examples and possibilities of internal and external attributions. After being

exposed to the examples the participants are asked what they would do in such a situation

and whom they assign the cause to (find out about attribution and biases), how they would

feel about doing it and why they would feel this way (influence of the self-serving bias).

A survey was designed to measure the degree to which the “Causal Attribution” of

buying or not buying a CM-product influences the actual attribution of causes, the MSI,

the motivation and a person’s moral emotions. The stimuli are scenarios, designed to make participants identify with a specific situation and to discover how they react when being

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inferences about CM campaigns general, we use questions that allow conclusive

inferences. Specifically, we examine how presenting consumers with a specific attribution

possibility for buying or not buying a CM-product influences the MSI and moral emotions

in positive as well as negative ways. As noted in the introduction, the assumption is that

the effects of buying or not buying a CM-product on the dependent variables will differ

depending on whether the cause for a purchase decision can be attributed internally or

externally.

Participants, Design, and Procedures

Participants were 235 American adults from a Mechanical Turk sample (55% man,

Mage = 37.12, SD = 12,12). They were invited to take part in a study in exchange for $0.45.

Participants read a consent form and, if they agreed to the terms, were led to the survey.

In a 2 (Buying the CM-product Vs not buying the CM-product) × 2 (Own Decision Vs

Forced) between-subjects design (see Table 1 for sample sizes in each condition), all

participants were first introduced to a buying scenario.

The scenario mirrored a common purchase decision. The participants were asked

to imagine to be in need of a new laundry detergent. Two products were introduced with

one of them being a CM-product (i.e. for every purchased detergent from this brand, the

company gives a donation for charity) and the other one not including a donation. Next,

the participants were randomly assigned to one condition. Within the first condition, the

participants were asked to decide whether they want to buy Product A (the CM-product)

or Product B. Depending on their choice the participants were put either in the “Decision

For A”- group or the “Decision For B”- group. In the second condition, participants were told that only the product that was giving the donation (CM-product) was in stock and were

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product (meaning the one without the donation) was in stock and participants were forced

to imagine buying Product B. Using this design created the 2 (Buying the CM-product Vs

not buying the CM-product) × 2 (Own Decision Vs Forced) between-subjects design.

Table 1 Number of Participants per Condition

Causal Attribution

In each condition participants were asked to complete five question blocks.

Specifically, the first block included the “Causal Attribution”- scale and aimed to gather information on the actual cause the participant ascribed to the purchase outcome. We

measure the causal attribution using a seven item measure (“Causal-Attribution-Scale”;

Cronbach’s Alpha: 0.926). Items included for example “The outcome of this decision was

intended by me” (1= strongly disagree; 7= strongly agree). Within this scale low scores

imply an external attribution and high scores imply an internal attribution.

MSI

The second question block contained a measurement of the MSI. Nine traits which

are perceived as prototypical of an ideally-moral person (Aquino & Reed,2002) were

presented and we asked people to indicate how they feel relative to their ideal self after

having purchased either Product A or Product B and having either decided on the purchase Own

Decision

Forced Decision

The CM-product that is giving the donation (Product A) 84 43 127 The product that is not giving the donation (Product B) 50 58 108

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on their own or being forced to do the purchase (i.e., depending on their condition). On a

seven-point Likert Scale (1=much less than the X (e.g. caring) person I want to be; 7=much

more than the X (e.g. caring) person I want to be) participants were asked to rate their

perceived state for each of the nine traits (e.g. caring, friendly, generous; see appendix for

all items). (use Jordan, Leliveld & Tenbrunsel (2015) for comparison)

Motivation

In the third sequence of questions we aimed to get more insights on the participant’s

motivations and feelings. We measured the motivation using a seven – item scale

(Cronbach’s Alpha: 0.858), which included “My motives of buying this product were moral,” and “Being someone who has moral characteristics is an important part of who I am.” (1 = strongly disagree; 7= strongly agree).

Moral Emotions

The aim of the fourth question block was to gather insights on the emotions that

the participants felt after either being forced or deciding on their own to buy either the

CM-product (Product A) or the second CM-product (Product B). Eleven items were included in the

scale (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.962). Participants were asked to state to what amount they felt the presented emotions (specifically: Grace, Helpfulness, Comfort, Honesty,

Honourability, respectability, Charitability, Kindness, Self-esteem, Likeability) with low

scores indicating that they do not feel the emotion and high scores indicating that they

strongly feel the emotion. Again, they were asked to answer on a seven-point Likert scale.

We expect to see a positive effect of an internal causal attribution of buying a CM-product

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Attitude

All participants were in addition asked to state to what amount they believe that

purchase decisions, like the one they had been exposed to, say something about a person’s character. To find out about this attitude one item was used and participants answered on

a seven-point Likert Scale with low scores indicating that the decision does not mirror

character traits and high scores indicating that such decisions say something about the

character. The question was included to get insights on the overall attitude of the

participants concerning the purchase of CM-products.

Results

Actual Causal Attribution A 2x2 ANOVA was conducted on the influence of the

two independent variables (‘Purchase of CM-product’, Causal Attribution) on the actual

attribution of causes. ‘Purchase of CM-product’ included two levels (yes, no) and Causal

Attribution consisted of two levels (decision (internal), force (external)). The main effect

for Causal Attribution was significant, F (1, 231) = 327.6, p < .05, indicating that the

participants who actively decided to buy one of the two products (M = 5.59, SD = 0.85)

put more weight on internal attributions (and less on external) than the participants who

had to buy one of the products because the other one was out of stock (M = 2.91, SD =

1.37). However, we did not find a significant interaction effect between Purchase of

CM-product and Causal Attribution (F (1,231) = 0.542, p = 0.216). Also the main effect of

‘Purchase of CM-product’ showed no significant effect (F (1,231) = 0.410, p = 0.523)., indicating that the actual attribution (not considering forced or own decision) did not

significantly differ in the two conditions (Product A vs. Product B) (see Table 2 for all cell

means and standard deviations). Partially supporting Hypothesis 1a and 2a, we found a

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(F (1,231) = 327.6, p = 0.000). The group that was actively deciding to buy Product A or

Product B, scored higher than the group that did not actively decide (i.e. the group that was

forced to buy one of the products) on the purchase.

Table 2 Means and Standard Deviations (see parentheses) of the Causal Attribution

Measure

Decision Force Total

Product A (CM) 5.62 (0.94) 2.74 (1.41) 4.65 (1.76) Product B 5.53 (0.70) 3.02 (1.32) 4.19 (1.65)

Total 5.59 (0.85) 2.91 (1.37) 4.44 (1.73)

We did not find support for Hypothesis 1b (H1-b: When being forced to buy a

CM-product, consumers will put relatively less emphasis on external cues than in the situation

when they are being forced not to buy the CM-product). The consumers who were forced

to buy the CM-product actually put relatively more emphasis on the external causes than

people who were forced to buy the other product. We did not find support for Hypothesis

2b either. We were hypothesizing that consumers would not put more emphasis on internal

cues of purchasing a product after having decided to buy Product B (i.e. the product that

was not offering the donation). Yet, the participants that actively decided to buy Product

B scored nearly as high on the attribution scale as the participants who actively decided to

buy the CM-product. Due to the missing significance of the interaction effect, we were

only able to find partial support for H1a &H1b.

Moral Self Image A two-way analysis of variance did not yield a main effect of

‘Purchase of CM-product’ on the MSI (F (1,231) = 0.096, p = 0.757), such that the average score did not significantly differ in the condition “Decision For A” (M = 4.23, SD = 0.88)

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an internal causal attribution for the purchase of a CM-product would lead to higher scores

on the MSI-scale. The main effect of Causal Attribution was non-significant (F (1,231) =

2.00, p = 0.158), and no interaction effect was found significant (F (1,231) = 0.47, p =

0.496) indicating that the effect of ‘Purchase of CM-product’ on the MSI was not

significantly different across the two levels of Causal Attribution.

Table 3 Means and Standard Deviations of the MSI Measure

Decision Force Total

Product A (CM) 4.23 (0.88) 3.99 (0.73) 4.15 (0.84) Product B 4.12 (0.95) 4.03 (0.75) 4.07 (0.85)

Total 4.18 (0.91) 4.02 (0.74) 4.11 (0.84)

Motivation A ‘Purchase of CM-product’ (2) x ‘Causal Attribution’ (2) analysis of

variance was used to test differences between means on the Motivation – scale for

significance. We aimed to get insights on the influence of ‘Purchase of CM-product’ and

‘Causal Attribution’ on the motivation factor and on the interaction of the two IVs. The main effect of ‘Purchase of CM-product’ was not significant, (F (1,231) = 0.364, p = 0.547)

meaning that regardless to the attribution, people who bought the CM-product did not have

significantly different scores from people who bought the other product. In addition, the

main effect of ‘Causal Attribution’ was not significant either (F (1,231) = 2.255, p = 0.135).

No significant interaction effect was observed.

Moral Emotions A 2x2 ANOVA was performed to examine the effects of ‘Purchase

of CM-product’ and ‘Causal Attribution’ on Moral Emotions. Graph 1 shows the means

for the conditions of the design. Supporting Hypothesis 3-a and 4-a (H3-a: Buying a

CM-product and internally attributing the evoking conditions for the purchase will more

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attributing the evoking conditions., H4-a: In case of being forced, not buying a

CM-product will affect a consumer’s moral emotions less when externally attributing the evoking conditions than when internally attributing the evoking conditions.), we found a

significant interaction effect of ‘Purchase of CM-product’*’Causal Attribution’ on ‘Moral Emotions’ (F (1,321) = 10.44, p = 0.001). Consistent with prediction (and as illustrated in Figure 2), individuals who bought the CM-product put relatively more emphasis on the

causes for the purchase in the decision condition than in the forced condition, whereas

participants who bought Product B did on average not score very different regardless to

the reason for the purchase. There was a main effect for ‘Purchase of CM-product’ (F

(1,231) = 11.56, p = 0.001) with overall lower scores for participants who bought Product

B. Meaning that these participants experienced the proposed moral emotions less than

participants who bought the CM-product. There was also a main effect of ‘Causal

Attribution’ (F (1,231) = 10.48, p = 0.001). Meaning that regardless to the type of product,

people under the decision condition overall experienced relatively higher amounts of moral

emotions than the participants in the forced condition.

Table 4 Means and Standard Deviations of the Moral Emotion Measure

Decision Force Total

Product A (CM) 4.50 (1.25) 3.14 (1.82) 4.05 (1.60) Product B 3.14 (1.64) 3.13 (1.51) 3.14 (1.57)

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Figure 2 Means of Moral Emotion

General Question - Attitude We found a significant main effect of ‘Purchase of

CM-product’ on the general question (F (1,321) = 3.46, p = 0.001), which aimed at getting

to know whether participants believe that purchase decisions containing CM-products

indicate something about a person’s character traits. This finding means that regardless to

the causal attribution, individuals who bought the CM-product were more likely to indicate

that the purchase says something about the character than individuals who bought the other

product. We were also able to find a significant main effect of ‘Causal Attribution’ on this

attitude measure (F (1,321) = 2.68, p = 0.011), indicating that regardless to the type of

product bought, individuals who decided actively on buying one of the products were more

likely to score higher on this attitude scale than individuals that were forced to buy one of

the two products. However, there was no significant interaction effect of ‘Purchase of

CM-product’*’Causal Attribution’ on attitude.

Table 5 Means and Standard Deviations of the Attitude Measure

Decision Force Total

Product A (CM) 3.94 (1.14) 2.86 (1.06) 3.57 (1.23) Product B 2.66 (1.39) 3.33 (1.52) 3.03 (1.50) Total 3.47 (1.38) 3.13 (1.36) 3.32 (1.38) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Product A (CM product) Product B (normal product)

Moral Emotions

- 27 - Discussion

The cause makes the difference As illustrated, when diving into the area of causal

attribution, some links to consumer behaviour can be found. In this paper, we examined

how an attribution of causes can have influence on the emotional state of consumers in the

context of choosing between CM-products and ‘Non-CM-products’. The general aim of

this study was to uncover influences of causal attribution processes in purchase situations

that contain a CM-product as well as to get insights when and why consumers put emphasis

on internal or external cues. Our resultsdemonstrate that an active choice for buying

CM-products increases the strength of moral emotions felt after the purchase. In general, the

results demonstrate the importance of the attribution of causes for purchase decisions that

contain a CM-product. As we expected, the moral emotions of the group that actively

decided to buy a CM-product increased significantly compared to those who were forced

to buy exactly the same product. Such a high differentiation only existed for the

participants who purchased the CM-product (Product A). This outcome is consistent with

previous findings, suggesting that the attribution of causes for perceived positive outcomes

to the self can enhance a person’s self-esteem.

Self-serving internal attributions Heider’s (1944, 1958) model of attribution

suggests that people are more inclined to attribute the cause of an outcome internally the

more desirable the outcome of an action seems to be. The present study offers support for

this suggestions. Additionally, these findings can be taken as support for the hypothesized

influence of the self-serving bias. Actively deciding for the CM-product is perceived as an

indicator of positive character traits which the decision maker might obsess. Consumers

have a tendency to act in a way which they perceive as consistent with their own best

interests (Markus, 1977). In this case, their own interest is to see the own self in a good

light. Buying a CM-product can be perceived as an act that shows a person’s moral attitude.

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the outcome as desirable, consumers are inclined to focus on the fact that they actually

performed the action of buying the product. People who actively decided to buy a

CM-product put more emphasis on the internal causes and afterwards felt stronger moral

emotions.

In addition, we found no big difference in the average of moral emotions for the

purchase of the two products (CM-product and product without donation) when the

participants were forced to buy a laundry detergent. This finding suggests that consumers

will only be emotionally influenced by the purchase of a CM-product if they are able to

actively decide on buying it. Thus, there is another support of the self-serving way in which

consumers focus on specific causal attributions. The emphasis on the internal causes for

buying the product only puts the participant in a positive light when he or she performed

the seemingly more moral decision. In case of deciding for Product B, where the causes

are exactly as internal as when deciding for the CM-product, the emphasis that participants

put on the internal causes was found smaller. When the outcome is regarded as positive (in

this case: deciding for the CM-product indicates that a person possesses positive moral

character traits), individuals make more internal attributions; when the outcome is regarded

as negative, individuals make more external attributions or do not spend attention to the

causes. Conclusively, consumers quickly attribute outcomes that they feel to be desirable

to themselves, while other outcomes just do not get much attention. And this difference in

attributions for perceived positive and for perceived negative outcomes is precisely why

the self-serving bias is considered a bias.

Renaming the self-serving bias Is this bias just a destructing behaviour or does it

also have a helpful function? This bias, which leads people to reinterpret events to put

themselves into a favourable light, was renamed with the term ''beneffectance'' by

Greenwald (1980). Beneffectance describes similar to the self-serving bias a tendency

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Greenwald used this term in order to avoid the negative connotation by the alternative

'self-serving' term because he believed beneffectance to be a normal and common phenomenon.

Greenwald thereby argues in a similar vein as Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski

(1991). They explain that such biases, which help to enhance people’s self-esteem, are not

only a bad habit but that these self-deceptions help us to believe in ourselves and to

consider ourselves successful. In the vast majority of psychological theories, it is accepted

that people are motivated to sustain high levels of self-esteem. In a test, Greenberg,

Solomon and Pyszczynski (1991) demonstrated that people who were given positive facts

about themselves had a boosted self-esteem and because of this high self-esteem, they were

less anxious. Research thus showed that the bias is not only a useless phenomenon but

helps protecting our self-esteem and reducing hurtful emotions. Such self-deception helps

us to believe in ourselves, to consider ourselves successful and to believe about us that we

make a good impression to others (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). Thus the

fact that beneffectance or ‘self-serving-attributions’ can enhance a person’s self-esteem,

explains the findings that individuals engage in self-enhancing attributions under the

conditions of deciding actively on buying the CM-product.

Selective Attention When it comes to a “normal” laundry detergent, it seems to

make less difference whether participants actively decided on buying it or were forced to

buy it. In other words, whether participants were forced to buy Product B or actively

decided to buy Product B did not cause much variation in the average of moral emotions.

These findings can be an indicator for the way in which people spend less attention to the

emotional aspects if they have the feeling that there are no chances to increase own positive

emotions. Attention is only given to those aspects that might support a positive self-view.

Consumers feel the desire to protect or enhance the positivity of the self (Solomon,

Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991). In the other cases (i.e. cases where they did not perform

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moral aspect and therefore no effect of the causal attribution on the moral emotions can be

observed. This behaviour can be explained again by looking at another kind of bias, namely

the “confirmation bias”. By definition the confirmation bias describes the human tendency to retrospectively see previous decisions as right and to defend them against contrary

information. When people come in contact with new information many unconscious

processes influence how this information is processed. Processing information often

heavily relies on confirmation tendencies. If a participant made the decision to buy the

‘Non-CM-product’ but on the other hand has a very positive picture about own moral views in mind, the confirmation bias might lead him or her to be blind for any moral aspect within

this purchase decision.

Forced purchase Contrary to our expectations, people who were hindered to buy

the CM-product and thus had to buy the “normal” laundry detergent did not put more

emphasis on the external causes than people who were forced to buy the CM-product. Yet,

we have to think about the possible influence of brand preferences that can explain such

outcomes. It is widely accepted that preferences are constructed and are highly contingent

upon a variety of context and individual characteristics (Payne et al., 1993). Thus we have

to keep in mind that not only the type of product (meaning CM-product or

Non-CM-product) and the attribution of causes have an influence on the preference for one of the

products. For our study we used two laundry detergent brands that are actually available

in the USA. It might therefore be that participants know both presented brands of laundry

detergents and that they have a strong preference for one of the two brands. If a participant

was put in the condition where only his or her unfavored brand was available, he or she

might have felt unsatisfied. This dissatisfaction can explain the higher claims on the

external causes also for the CM-product. In order to foreclose the influence of

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Future investigation for the MSI-measure We proposed that an active choice for a

CM-product leads to higher scores on the MSI-scale. Against our expectations, we did not

find significant differences in the means for the MSI-measures. All participants scored

moderately high on the MSI-scale, suggesting that they perceive to be the moral person

they want to be (i.e. not much less moral or much more moral than the person they want to

be). The findings on the MSI-scale, which did not support our hypothesis, can have

multiple reasons and ask for further research. First, when measuring the MSI, the questions

are more generally aiming at a person’s self-concept. Participants are asked to compare the perception of own characteristics to the own moral ideal. Thus, the questions may be

perceived as not directly related to the hypothetic purchase situation. There may be effects

of this specific purchase decision on the MSI which do not directly redound on the

participant’s MSI score but might manifest at a later time. Thus we advise to investigate in the question whether the effects of this purchase decision will manifest on a person’s

MSI after some weeks. This can for example be done, by exposing participants to similar

surveys that include purchase decisions including CM-products and not directly gathering

the data on the MSI in the same questionnaire but in a questionnaire some time later.

The unexpected findings might also be caused by the missing connection the

participants are making between the purchase decision and their moral attitude. One reason

for these findings might be that participants did not perceive Product B as a ‘worse choice’.

For these participants, it was not morally wrong or worse to buy this product. It is not clear

whether the participants saw a moral aspect in the situation and whether they perceived it

as a ‘noble act’ to buy the CM-product. These possible circumstances lead us to advise that future research should invest in the role of awareness in ethical decision making. Internal

attributions for success might not connect to the moral self-image in cases where people

are unaware of a moral aspect within a situation. The MSI can change whenever there are

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moral self-concept can vary according to different situations (Xiaowei, 2012).

Occasionally, a decision is not inspired by a moral appeal but by another goal and the

evaluation done afterwards is based on how consumers wish to look upon the situation.

Moral awareness is the essential base for moral reasoning and ethical decision making and

can be seen as the first step along the path to ethical behaviour. Even though people might

not show moral behaviour when being unaware of a moral appeal in a situation, most

empirical studies are still focusing on the latter phases of moral reasoning.

Reynolds (2006) defines moral awareness as “a person's determination that a situation contains moral content and legitimately can be considered from a moral point of

view”, what means that one is able to exhibit different patterns of moral awareness in different situations (Treviño, 1986). The step towards moral reasoning on an issue can

only be taken in cases when decision makers are aware of the presence of an ethical issue

(Ruedy & Schweitzer, 2010). Therefore, we propose to invest in the possibility that the

effects of buying a cause-related product on the MSI will only become obvious if the

consumer is aware of the moral aspect in a purchase situation. Such research can for

example be done by conducting multiple studies with a similar construct as the presented

one. In addition, one study should be added in which only the awareness of the moral

aspect within this situation is tested. This insight can be gathered either via another

questionnaire or by personal interviews.

A non-decisive purchase One additional thought when looking at the findings we

got on the MSI scale could be that participants might in fact have considered a moral aspect

in the present situation, but have felt that this aspect was not essential enough to have an

influence on their moral self-image. Buying a laundry detergent is only a small

commonplace decision and might therefore be perceived as too unimportant to have

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including a purchase decision which can have a bigger impact. Such purchase decision

could for example be one about a smartphone or even about a car.

When designing the survey, one additional suggestion was that an active decision

for the ‘Non-CM-product’ would lead to lower scores on the moral emotion scale. Our data indicates that the participants did not see a connection between being forced to buy Product

B and a ‘non noble act’ (i.e. the force to buy Product B did not lower the scores on the

moral emotion scale very much). However, there was one participant who indicated that

the two brands actually belong to the same company. Thus, participants might have

believed that it would not make much difference on the company’s actions no matter whether they bought the CM-product or Product B. When consumers are believing that

own decisions do not have influence, there will be less effect on moral emotions due to a

missing feeling of responsibility. That no negative effect showed up on the moral emotions

of consumers who decided to buy the Non-CM-product can therefore be explained with

the fact that participants did not link the decision to moral aspects but to other factors. In

addition, we can mention the similar line of reasoning as used for the missing findings on

the MSI. Seeing the purchase of a laundry detergent as a small commonplace act, the

decision for the ‘Non-CM-product’ might be perceived as simply too unimportant to have

an effect on a person’s emotional state.

We also have to keep in mind that we introduced a hypothetical situation to the

participants. The MSI and moral-emotions are strongly related to a person’s perception of

a situation and participants might have had difficulties to imagine being in the hypothetical

situation. It is more difficult to actually influence the MSI and moral emotions with such

scenarios and clearer findings might be gathered if a study was done in a real-life

environment.

Some of the possible explanations mentioned above hold for the findings for the

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there will be no motivational effect. Motivation relates to our desire to achieve a certain

outcome and motivation is tied to the concept of involvement, meaning to what extent the

consumer will exert in making a decision (Trommsdorff, 2009). The present situation does

not represent a situation which calls for high involvement.

We also asked the participants in a question at the end of the survey to state to what

extent they think that purchasing CM-products reflects one's moral character. The findings

show that the ones stating that such decisions say a lot about the character are also the ones

that more frequently decided to buy the CM-product. This result can be interpreted in two

ways. First, it might be that participants who generally think that buying CM-products is

related to a person’s character traits are more prone to pick the CM-product. Second, it might be that participants who decided to buy the CM-product were afterwards more prone

to connect this purchase decision to own character traits.

Managerial Implications

Managers might argue that it is not important why a consumer purchases a product

but only that he or she purchases it. Yet, when it comes to the purchase of CM-products,

there seems to be an important impact of causal attribution on the emotional state of the

consumer. Especially when it comes to CM, emotions can be a strong driving force for

consumer behaviour. Emotions create preferences which lead to our decision. One

characteristic of emotions - perhaps the most important one - is that they push us toward

action. How emotional responses may influence decisions to purchase cause-related

products is an important field of research when it comes to developing successful

campaigns. Additionally, recent research has focused on the effect of purchasing

CM-products on a person’s MSI (Jordan, Leliveld & Tenbrunsel, 2015). As emotions are an