Can moral innovators speed up (not just impede) social change?

Introduction

General objective: promotion of sustainable behaviour is crucial for the protection of the

environment and the earth.

How can we effectively promote these behaviours?

Ø Persuasive moralization (Bolderdijk et al., 2013)

Ø Moral innovators (i.e. consumers that engage in ethical behaviours for moral reasons)?

Moral innovators

•

Role models for other consumers (Bollinger, & Gillingham, 2012; Starr, 2009)

•

Morally motivated innovators can elicit inspiration (Bolderdijk et al., 2018)

•

Wilfully ignorant consumers denigrate moral innovators

•

The negative perception of ethical consumers also reduces future purchase intentions for ethical products (Zane et al.,

2016).

•

Do-gooder derogation effect

Good

Bad

Why:

the observers want to maintain a positive self-concept and in doing so they derogate the source of the threat (Fein &

Spencer, 1997)

Research question

Theoretical framework

How can we answer this question?

Ø Moral innovators make moral imperfections salient that reveal a discrepancy between actual self and ought self

Ø The discrepancy leads to feel guilty (Higgins 1987)

Ø Guilt is a self-conscious emotion, and it is related to the violation of personal goals. (Tangney & Tracy, 2012; Tracy &

Robins, 2004)

2. Shared values can increase the sense of guilt

Ø Shared values make the discrepancy between actual self and ought self more salient

Ø As a result the feeling of guilt is stronger

3. Feeling of guilt and moral compensatory behaviour

Ø Feeling of guilt motivates moral compensatory behaviour (Ding et al., 2016)

Ø That is associated with moral cleansing (Sachdeva et al., 2009)

Ø Moral compensatory behaviour as attempt to protect the self image (West & Zhong, 2015)

Conceptual Framework

H1

H3

H2

H1

Morally-motivated innovators elicit more guilt among observers who made an unethical decision

than non-morally motivated innovators.

H2

After the exposure to a morally-motivated innovator, observers will feel even guiltier for the

_{unethical decision if they share the same ethical values.}

H3

People who experienced guilt, relative to those who had not experienced guilt, will be more

likely to act ethically in future occasions.

Methodology

Or Exposed to non-moral innovator Measuring

mindsets (Max Kokhuis)

Exposed to moral innovator:

Part 1a Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Assessment of shared values Assessment of feeling of guilt Intention to behave sustainably in another domain

Procedure

Research design

Ø Survey in collaboration with Max Kokhuis

Ø Convenience sampling + snowball technique

Ø Distribution on social media

Ø Languages: English, Dutch and Italian

Results

Exposure to moral vs. non-moral innovators

Guilt

Sustainable behaviour in another domain Shared values b = 0.24, SE = 0.14 p > 0.05 H1 – Not Supported* b = - 0.02 SE = 0.14 p > 0.05 H2 – Not Supported b = 0.29 SE = 0.07 p < 0.05 H3 – Supported

• Direct effect à b = 0.21 SE = 0.13 95%CI [- 0.06, 0.48] à c’ àNot Sig. • Index moderated mediation à 95%CI [- 0.09, 0.07] àNot Sig.

• Totale effect à (b = 0.28 SE = 0.14 p = 0.05)** Tot participants 238 Failed manipulation check 28 Ethical behaviour 37 Outliers (< 5 min )

10 Vegans and vegetarians ₁₁

Data cleaning by step

Tot

180

Moderated mediation – testing the hypotheses

0 2 4 6 8 10 Feeling of guilt

Mean difference feeling of

guilt:

Intention to behave sustainably

Mean difference s. behaviour:

Discussion

Theoretical and practical implications

Should policy makers utilise moral role models like moral innovators in order to promote more sustainable behaviours? Yes

1.

They make the observers feel slightly guilty about their unethical decision

2.

The observers engage in a moral compensatory behaviour to clean their self-concept, in order to stop feeling guilty about their previous

immorality

3.

Not every observer will feel guilty about their previous decision

DITF technique:

the use of moral innovators in campaign or advertising can be compared to the door-in-the-face technique (DITF): a large request is followed

by a moderate target request

Limitations and future research:

1.

Absence of moral do-gooder derogation, observers not self-involved à what factors determine self-involvement?

Findings:

•

H.1 not supported: however mean difference resulted significant

•

H.2 not supported: too little variance in the data regarding biospheric values

•

H.3

supported

: confirmed results previous research (Ding et al. 2016)

+ full mediation excluding participants that failed manipulation check

Thank you for your attention

References

• Bolderdijk, J. W., Brouwer, C., & Cornelissen, G. (2018). When do morally motivated innovators elicit inspiration instead of irritation?. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 2362. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02362

• Bolderdijk, J. W., Steg, L., Geller, E. S., Lehman, P. K., & Postmes, T. (2013). Comparing the effectiveness of monetary versus moral motives in environmental campaigning. Nature Climate Change, 3(4), 413–416.

• Bollinger, B., & Gillingham, K. (2012). Peer effects in the diffusion of solar photovoltaic panels. Marketing Science, 31(6), 900–912. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1120.0727

• Ding, W., Xie, R., Sun, B., Li, W., Wang, D., & Zhen, R. (2016). Why does the "sinner" act prosocially? the mediating role of guilt and the moderating role of moral identity in motivating moral cleansing. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1317–1317. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01317

• Fein, S., & Spencer, S. J. (1997). Prejudice as self-image maintenance: affirming the self through derogating others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(1), 31–44. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.73.1.31

• Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: a theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319–40.

• Sachdeva, S., Iliev, R., & Medin, D. L. (2009). Sinning saints and saintly sinners: the paradox of moral self-regulation. Psychological Science, 20(4), 523– 528.

• Starr, M. A. (2009). The social economics of ethical consumption: theoretical considerations and empirical evidence. Journal of Socio-Economics, 38(6), 916–925. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2009.07.006

• Tangney, J. P. E., & Tracy, J. L. (2012). Self-conscious emotions. Leary MR, Tangney JP. In Handbook of Self and Identity. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press; 2012.

• Tracy, J. L., & Robins, R. W. (2004). Putting the self into self-conscious emotions: a theoretical model. Psychological Inquiry, 15(2), 103–125. • West, C., & Zhong, C.-B. (2015). Moral cleansing. Current Opinion in Psychology, 6, 221– 225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.022 • Zane, D. M., Irwin, J. R., & Reczek, R. W. (2016). Do less ethical consumers denigrate more ethical consumers? the effect of willful ignorance on