New research from York University’s Schulich School of Business reveals that moral considerations significantly shape consumer identities and decision-making. The work demonstrates that it’s not only controversial or highly polarizing choices that are subject to moral evaluation – even routine, everyday purchases can be influenced by moral judgments and often require justification.
The findings were published in the paper “Moralizing Everyday Consumption: The Case of Self-Care,” in the Journal of Consumer Research. The article was co-written by Ela Veresiu, an associate professor of marketing and department Chair at Schulich, together with Rachel E. Hochstein, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Colleen M. Harmeling, the Dr. Persis E. Rockwood Associate Professor of Marketing at Florida State University.
The authors set out to better understand when and how consumers moralize everyday consumption practices. They examined these questions in the context of the booming self-care trend, which is commonly understood as consumer actions directed toward the goal of sustaining their lives, health and well-being.
Their research reveals that everyday consumption is likely to be moralized when there are culturally contested meanings of its core constructs, like “self” and “care,” leading cultural authorities – such as influencers and medical professionals – to prescribe alternative ways (i.e. cultural scripts) to pursue the same consumption goal.
“The cultural script of self-care perpetuated by marketers and influencers includes more bubble baths, wine and 'treat yourself' shopping sprees than the cultural script of self-care perpetuated by health care practitioners, which encompasses exercise, a balanced diet and regular doctors’ appointments,” says Veresiu.
“Exposure to cultural scripts that clash with consumers’ moral intuitions about self-care consumption triggers moral introspection, an evaluation and recalibration of those intuitions,” explains Hochstein. Consumers then set moral boundaries of acceptable self-care consumption by either assuming a morally righteous position, indicating moral inclusivity, applying moral licensing – allowing themselves to behave in an immoral way after first behaving in a moral way – or expressing moral autonomy.
“Ultimately, the moralization process we identify in our research has implications for a wide variety of consumption practices,” concludes Veresiu. “It also has implications for how consumers see themselves, the world and their roles in society, which can hopefully enhance societally beneficial consumption practices.”