What motivates your green behavior determines your morality.

• Main Author: Khei, Mark Zhi Ao.
• Other Authors: Lee Sau-Lai
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology::Motivation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/43720
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Present study showed that motives underlying buying green products (environmental versus economic) mediated the effects of moral licensing. Eighty undergraduates were shown descriptions of products either worded in an environmental or economic perspective. They were then assigned to purchase or not purchase these products. Finally, their honesties and selfishness were measured via a judgment and donation task respectively. Present study hypothesized an interaction between motives and buying, where the difference in cheating between both motives in the buying condition was significantly greater than the difference in the non-buying group. Indeed, it was found that participants cheated more and donated lesser when they purchased green products under the environmental perspective than when they purchased green products under the economic perspective.