Transcript MAR_6930_Lecture_14_Things_About_Consumers_Notes

Things about consumers that
make firms act badly
December 8, 2010
Overview
• Why don’t consumers behave perfectly?
– What gets in the way?
• How can we help people with good intentions
act according to them?
• How can we help other people develop good
intentions, too?
Talking and walking…
• 30% of consumer say they would purchase
ethical products
• How many actually do?
3%
Futerra, 2005
Why?
• Some of the mismatch between intentions
and behavior is overoptimistic intentions
• Not much we can do about that…
• How do we get those with good intentions to
follow up on them?
– How do we get those without good intentions to
follow through too?
Getting good people to stay good
• We’ve already seen some ways that help:
– Make sure they know what opportunities exist,
and how they can find them
– Make sure they have gentle guidance, to help
them make the choice they want to make
– Etc.
• What else can they do?
Implementation intentions
Calculated ignorance
Ehrich & Irwin, 2005
What do they focus on?
• Ask about money, morals don’t matter
• Ask about other qualities, they do
Irwin & Baron, 2001
Context matters
Paharia et al., 2009
Positive cueing
• Many things people do are good for the
environment, but they do them for other
reasons
– For example, turning the lights out, or not littering
• Or they do them so often they don’t register
– Recycling, riding the bus
• What if we remind people that those
behaviors are environmentally friendly?
Positive cueing
• Reminding people that they often perform
environmentally friendly behaviors…
• Makes them think that they are more
environmentally conscious…
• Which makes them more inclined to perform
less common environmentally friendly
behaviors
Cornelisson et al., 2008
Self-control is a resource
• Experiment on “taste perception” conducted
in lab where cookies were baking
• Participant presented with plate of radishes
and plate of cookies; assigned to taste only
radishes (self-control) or only cookies (no selfcontrol); given 5 minutes to do so
• DM: subsequent persistence on an unsolvable
“tracing” puzzle
Baumeister et al., 1998
Ego depletion
Baumeister et al., 1998
Depletion and cheating
Reframing attention
Attentional myopia
Attentional myopia
How “bad” people allow bad companies
• What if people don’t have the inclination to
be responsible?
– How does that happen?
Moral hypocrisy
• The motivation to appear moral without
engendering the costs of being moral
– Whenever there’s wiggle room, there can be
moral hypocrisy
Moral hypocrisy
Batson et al., 1997
Moral hypocrisy
Valdesolo & Desteno, 2007
Self-Deception
• Part of this is self-deception: people don’t believe
that they are doing wrong
– People are “intuitive lawyers”
• People also accept “ethical fading” because they
don’t want to know otherwise
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Euphemisms (“downsizing”)
Slippery slopes (when do we start to complain?)
Errors in perceptual causation (BP gas stations)
We are constrained by who we are (we just can’t be
objective)
Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004
Techniques of Neutralization
• Denial of responsibility
– It wasn’t my fault!
• Denial of injury
– They have so many stores, they’ll never miss one
book
• Denial of victim
– If they priced thing fairly, I wouldn’t have to steal
• Condemning the condemners
– Like they’ve never done anything wrong!
• Appeal to higher loyalties
– I did it to prove a point
Techniques of Neutralization
• Denial of responsibility
– The company made the products, not me
• Denial of injury
– It’s just one light bulb!
• Denial of victim
– Everybody else does the same thing, so they must not
care
• Condemning the condemners
– Like they’ve never done anything wrong!
• Appeal to higher loyalties
– I need to be able to afford to feed my family
Summary
• We can help people with good intentions act
according to them, by…
– Making them have a plan, or listen to the right info
– Asking them the right questions
– Avoiding times when they don’t have the resources to
make the right choice, or guiding them if necessary
• We can help other people “develop” good
intentions, too, by…
– Not giving them wiggle room
– Not letting them fool themselves about the
consequences of their actions