What motivates your green behavior determines your morality.

Abstract

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.