Drawing on social learning and moral identity theories, this research examines antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership. Additionally, this research empirically examines the distinctivene...

Who Displays Ethical Leadership, and Why Does It Matter? An Examination of Antecedents and Consequences of Ethical Leadership

This article proposes and tests a social-cognitive framework for examining the joint influence of situational factors and the centrality of moral identity on moral intentions and behaviors. The authors hypothesized that if a situational factor increases the current accessibility of moral identity within the working self-concept, then it strengthens the motivation to act morally. In contrast, if a situational factor decreases the current accessibility of moral identity, then it weakens the motivation to act morally. The authors also expected the influence of situational factors to vary depending on the extent to which moral identity was central to a person's overall self-conception. Hypotheses derived from the framework were tested in 4 studies. The studies used recalling and reading a list of the Ten Commandments (Study 1), writing a story using morally laden terms (Study 4), and the presence of performance-based financial incentives (Studies 2 and 3) as situational factors. Participants' willingness to initiate a cause-related marketing program (Study 1), lie to a job candidate during a salary negotiation (Studies 2 and 3), and contribute to a public good (Study 4) were examined. Results provide strong support for the proposed framework.

Testing a Social-Cognitive Model of Moral Behavior: The Interactive Influence of Situations and Moral Identity Centrality

Highlighting the important role of marketing in encouraging sustainable consumption, the current research presents a review of the academic literature from marketing and behavioral science that exa...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022242919825649

How to SHIFT Consumer Behaviors to be More Sustainable: A Literature Review and Guiding Framework:

The question of why people are motivated to act altruistically has been an important one for centuries, and across various disciplines. Drawing on previous research on moral regulation, we propose a framework suggesting that moral (or immoral) behavior can result from an internal balancing of moral self-worth and the cost inherent in altruistic behavior. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to write a self-relevant story containing words referring to either positive or negative traits. Participants who wrote a story referring to the positive traits donated one fifth as much as those who wrote a story referring to the negative traits. In Experiment 2, we showed that this effect was due specifically to a change in the self-concept. In Experiment 3, we replicated these findings and extended them to cooperative behavior in environmental decision making. We suggest that affirming a moral identity leads people to feel licensed to act immorally. However, when moral identity is threatened, moral behavior is a means to regain some lost self-worth.

Sinning Saints and Saintly Sinners The Paradox of Moral Self-Regulation

Conspicuous displays of consumption and benevolence might serve as \"costly signals\" of desirable mate qualities. If so, they should vary strategically with manipulations of mating-related motives. The authors examined this possibility in 4 experiments. Inducing mating goals in men increased their willingness to spend on conspicuous luxuries but not on basic necessities. In women, mating goals boosted public--but not private--helping. Although mating motivation did not generally inspire helping in men, it did induce more helpfulness in contexts in which they could display heroism or dominance. Conversely, although mating motivation did not lead women to conspicuously consume, it did lead women to spend more publicly on helpful causes. Overall, romantic motives seem to produce highly strategic and sex-specific self-presentations best understood within a costly signaling framework.

/pdf/blatant-benevolence-and-conspicuous-consumption-when-nm2rwa6laj.pdf

Blatant Benevolence and Conspicuous Consumption: When Romantic Motives Elicit Strategic Costly Signals

In several studies, the authors examine the potential to leverage a consumer's moral identity to enhance brand and company identification and promote goodwill through community relations. Studies 1a and 1b show that even when opportunity costs are equivalent (subjectively or economically), consumers who also have a highly self-important moral identity perceive the act of giving time versus money as more moral and self-expressive. The authors extend these findings to self-reported preferences and establish boundary conditions in two additional studies. Consumers with higher organizational status prefer to give money versus time, but this preference is weaker for those with a highly self-important moral identity (Study 2), and the preference for giving time versus money is more likely to emerge when the moral self is primed and the time given has a moral purpose (Study 3).

Moral Identity and Judgments of Charitable Behaviors

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/1810/256635/1/Chen_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Consumer_Psychology-AM.pdf

The effect of social exclusion on consumer preference for anthropomorphized brands

Four studies show that moral identity reduces people's aversion to giving time-particularly as the psychological costs of doing so increase. In Study 1, we demonstrate that even when the cost of time and money are held equivalent, a moral cue enhances the expected self-expressivity of giving time-especially when it is given to a moral cause. We found that a moral cue reduces time aversion even when giving time was perceived to be unpleasant (Study 2), or when the time to be given was otherwise seen to be scarce (Study 3). Study 4 builds on these studies by examining actual giving while accounting for the real costs of time. In this study, we found that the chronic salience of moral identity serves as a buffer to time aversion, specifically as giving time becomes increasingly costly. These findings are discussed in terms of the time-versus-money literature and the identity literature. We also discuss policy implications for prosocial cause initiatives. (PsycINFO Database Record

/pdf/i-don-t-want-the-money-i-just-want-your-time-how-moral-gn3gbssiiv.pdf

I don't want the money, I just want your time: How moral identity overcomes the aversion to giving time to prosocial causes.

Helping others or oneself: How direction of comparison affects prosocial behavior

4.5 New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism: Examining the Role of Anthropomorphism in Financial Decision-Making and Consumer Welfare - no. 3

/pdf/moral-identity-and-brand-anthropomorphism-17jcrr6pu7.pdf

Eric Levy

Papers

Moral Identity and Judgments of Charitable Behaviors

The effect of social exclusion on consumer preference for anthropomorphized brands

I don't want the money, I just want your time: How moral identity overcomes the aversion to giving time to prosocial causes.

Helping others or oneself: How direction of comparison affects prosocial behavior

Moral Identity and Brand Anthropomorphism