Green and greedy?

[Trog]

I just stumbled across this article (http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0911/full/climate.2009.107.html) which I found interesting and sort of surprising. I thought it might make for a good discussion here.


Purchasing green products can make people behave less altruistically, suggests new research.

Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto conducted three experiments to gauge how people's interaction with green products affected their other social interactions. The first experiment, involving 59 students, showed that participants rated those who buy green products as being more cooperative, altruistic and ethical than those who purchase conventional products. In the second experiment, each of 156 students was randomly assigned to shop at either a conventional or 'green' online store, in which they were either exposed to items or invited to purchase items. The same students then participated in a game that involved sharing money with an unidentified person in a separate room. While those exposed to the green products shared more money than those exposed to the conventional products, participants who had bought green products shared less money. In a final experiment, which set 90 students the task of playing a computer game, purchasers of green products were the most likely to lie and steal to earn extra money.

The authors suggest that buying green products may act as a 'moral offset', prompting people to be more lax with other ethical norms.

Another blog summed it up this way:


Green is good. You think before you print; you buy your organic whatever; you sort-of sympathise with the bumper sticker injunction to "live simply so that others may simply live". It might not be as cheap or as easy – but it's the right thing to do. Isn't it?

Well, consider this: a person who makes the decent, green choice is much more likely to behave badly afterwards, according to researchers at the University of Toronto. Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong split 156 students between two online shops: one a conventional store, the other mainly selling green alternatives. Within both groups, some could actually buy things while others were allowed only to browse.

All the students were then handed cash to share with an anonymous person however they chose. The students who had looked around the eco-shop but not bought anything gave most generously; mere exposure to the goods prompted them to behave better. However, those who had actually made green purchases were far stingier than even the conventional shoppers.

Next, all the guinea pigs sat a simple computer test to identify repeatedly which side of the screen was showing more dots, with the twist that picking the right-hand side always earned them more money – even if it was incorrect. Finally, the students were told the amount they'd won, and invited to take that exact amount out of an envelope full of money.

What happened? The conventional shoppers played it reasonably straight, whereas the green consumers cheated far more and even stole extra cash, pocketing nearly a third more money than they were entitled to. Having done their good deed, the greens apparently felt they'd proved their moral worth – allowing them to behave immorally and illegally. Psychologists call this "the licensing effect"

What is your reaction to this study?

[Ichneumon]

I don't find this surpricing. If you do good one way, giving a lot to charity for example, you feel less inclined to also do good in another way. I'm not saying this is good or acceptable, but I find it is a normal reaction. "I'm already giving a lot, why should I give even more?" I don't think this is in any way particularly linked to "green" philosophy or ideology though, not that it was implied.

[Telonius]

I wonder if the "green" products cost more than the conventional products. If so, there might be another reason for stinginess than the licensing effect.

[hamishspence]

the harshest possible conclusion to draw would be that people who are keen on preserving animals and the environment are rather less keen on behaving morally toward people.

That is to say, there is only so much moral behaviour one person has to go around- and it is rare for people to behave well toward both.

I think such a conclusion is a bit excessive though.

And I've seen counterarguments that those who are cruel to animals are more likely to be cruel to people- and vice-versa with kindness.

So I'd say drawing conclusions might be a bit premature at this point.

[Ichneumon]

That is to say, there is only so much moral behaviour one person has to go around- and it is rare for people to behave well toward both.

I'd disagree with this statement. Kindness isn't something we have a limited amount of. Being kind to one person or individual doesn't mean you can't be kind to another. Being considerate towards animals or "the environment" has no impact on your capacity to be considerate towards human beings. It's true that we have a limited time to dedicate to solving social issues like child starvation, animal cruelty or global warming, so you could say that in advocating and in working for social/poltical change there is just a limited amount of "dedicated time" we can infest in each issue, but that has nothing to do with being considerate and behaving "morally" in our daily lives.

[hamishspence]

I did say such a conclusion was excessive.

I suspect that, while some people might take a "animals are good, most humans are evil" attitude- and apply it in their treatment of other humans, this is very much the exception rather than the rule.

My guess is that most people don't take the view "you can't love animals/the environment, and other people, at the same time"

Though situations when the needs of both come into conflict may exist.

[Ichneumon]

I did say such a conclusion was excessive.


I'm sorry if it seems I said I disagree with you instead of with the sentiment you mentioned. :smallwink:


I suspect that, while some people might take a "animals are good, most humans are evil" attitude- and apply it in their treatment of other humans, this is very much the exception rather than the rule.

True. I suspect it is the same as with some feminists or civil rights activists who in effect become sexist or racist in their behaviour because it's difficult to fight for the rights of an oppressed group without unconsciously seeing the oppressor as the "evil" side, even though in many cases there is not really an "oppressor" side as it's society as a whole that contributes to the "social issue". It's rare though, like you said.

[Adlan]

Doing good makes you less likely to do further good for the general populace, it's not related to what the good act was, wether the act is actually good or you just think so, or whatever, people feel social responsibility, but then once they've acted, feel they've done their bit for a while.

Like Tim Minchin Sings 50 cents to take away my guilt.

[hamishspence]

no problem :smallwink:

Depending on your view "affirmative action" policies, along the lines of "if you have two people equally qualified a man and a woman, hire the woman" may be an example of this.

The notion of "penalizing the present generation of X for the crimes of past generations of X"

where X is a given "oppressor group" is another.

[hamishspence]

Doing good makes you less likely to do further good for the general populace, it's not related to what the good act was, wether the act is actually good or you just think so, or whatever, people feel social responsibility, but then once they've acted, feel they've done their bit for a while.

The bit that caught my attention was the willingness to cheat.

I wonder, if there have been experiments that demonstate this willingness to cheat is present all the time, rather than just after "buying green".

That is to say, if the percentage of embezzlers, etc. among those who buy green, is higher than in the general population.

I hope not.

[Hazkali]

There are lots of studies. Whilst the results are interesting, in psychology/sociology studies like this the samples of 59 and 156 are quite small. Whilst it may be that acting charitably in one instance makes someone less likely to in another, without access to the actual data I'm not sure how likely a correct conclusion this is.

Whilst it has been shown that people can be 'primed' towards certain patterns of behaviour, that the effect is statistical and not individually deterministic I think does not invalidate the concept of free will (which I feel is more "freedom of action").

[hamishspence]

Yup- sample sizes of thousands or millions might make such conclusions a bit more plausible- if the experiments were repeated multiple times and got the same general result every time.

And were done in multiple areas, sections of the population, etc, to minimise other possible reasons for the effect.

[Trog]

On the experiment about buying the products, a little more specific info from their published findings PDF spoilered for length:

Upon arrival participants were led to a cubicle equipped with a computer and informed that they were going to engage in a number of unrelated tasks. They were first assigned to one of two online stores that carried a mix of green and conventional products but differed in the ratio of these two types of products: the green store carried nine green and three conventional products; the conventional store carried nine conventional and three green products. There was no difference in number of products, product categories, or price.

Participants in the mere exposure condition were asked to rate each of the products on the aesthetics of design and the informativeness of description. Participants in the purchase condition were invited to select products that they would like to purchase. Participants were offered to fill their baskets (maximum one item per product) up to $25 and were told that one out of 25 students would be randomly chosen to actually receive their purchased products.

Participant then engaged in an ostensibly unrelated “interpersonal interaction” task in which they were led to believe that they had been randomly paired with another person in a different room; in actuality, there was none. Participants were assured that their identity would be kept confidential. They were explained the rules of an anonymous Dictator Game that includes one initiator and recipient. The initiator has money ($6) to allocate between the self and the recipient. Initiators keep whatever they do not offer; recipients can choose to accept or reject the offer, but their choice only affects their own payoff. Participants were told that they had been randomly assigned to the initiator’s role (even though they all played that role) and ensured that they would walk away with any amount of money they kept for themselves.

Neither store type (conventional vs. green) nor action (mere exposure vs. purchase) had a significant main effect on giving money, but there was a significant interaction. Participants who were merely exposed to the green store shared more money than those exposed to the conventional store. However, the result flipped in the purchasing conditions: participants who had purchased in the green store shared less money than those in the conventional store.

Afterwards, they engaged in an ostensibly unrelated visual perception task in which they saw a box divided by a diagonal line on the computer screen (Mazar & Ariely, 2009). Participants were told that on each trial they would see a pattern of 20 dots scattered inside the box. The pattern would stay on the screen for one second, and participants had to press a key to indicate whether there were more dots on the left or right side of the diagonal line. Participants were paid 0.5 cent for each trial identified as having more dots on the left and 5 cents for each trial identified as having more dots on the right.

The dots were always arranged such that one side clearly had more dots than the other side (15/14/13 vs. 5/6/7); thus it was fairly easy to identify the correct answer. We emphasized that it was important to be as accurate as possible because the results would help design future experiments.

Before the actual task participants were given a 30 trials-practice round (without pay) in which they could see their cumulative hypothetical earnings at the top of the screen updated after each trial. This was to let participants experience that the program would pay based on the key-presses, regardless of the answers being correct. Thus, once real pay was involved there would be a clear dilemma between reporting the correct answer and lying to earn more money.

The round with real pay consisted of 90 trials. Forty percent of trials had more dots on the right side (36 trials). Consequently, if 100% accurate, participants could make $2.07 in a task that lasted about 5 minutes. At the end of the 90th trial, participants saw a summary screen showing the total amount of money they had earned and instructing them to pay themselves by taking out the corresponding amount from the provided envelope. Thus, in addition to having the opportunity to lie, participants could also steal to increase their payoff2.

We found a significant difference in performance in the dots task. Participants who had purchased in the conventional store identified 42.5% of trials as having more dots on the right side, which was not significantly different from the actual 40%. Participants who had purchased in the green store, however, identified 51.4% of trials as having more dots on the right side – suggesting they were lying to earn more money. Consequently, participants in the green store condition earned on average $0.36 more money than those in the conventional store.

In addition, independent of the decision to lie, participants could steal by taking out more money from the envelope than shown on the summary screen. Consistent with the previous finding, participants in the green store stole $0.48 more money from the envelope than those in the conventional store. Together, they left the experiment with on average $0.83 more in
their pockets than participants in the conventional store condition.

[Coidzor]

What is your reaction to this study?

Sounds about right. People who think they're being moral have always been the rudest and most confrontational towards me in my day to day life whether it be on moral, political, social, or cultural grounds.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

I wonder if the "green" products cost more than the conventional products. If so, there might be another reason for stinginess than the licensing effect.

That is quite often the case. In organic foods for example (since it is somewhat my area of study), the price at a grocery for organic foods as opposed to normal foods are generally quite a bit higher due to the fact much of the crop (sometimes as much as half) is lost to diseases and pest infestation. Since there is far less crop to sell, it is naturally higher in cost. It's also be scientifically proven the amount of bacteria on organic foods is through the roof compared to that on normal pesticide sprayed produce.

[Pyrian]

:smallconfused: I don't get the point of the games. Neither one makes any sense from a game design perspective. I'm not convinced you can draw any legitimate conclusions from setups that are clearly farcical; the participants are essentially bound to realize that it's not on the up-and-up. If they perform the actions they are rewarded for rather than the actions they're lied to about, can that really be ascribed to any sort of moral failing? I could just as easily argue that the green-buyers are simply smarter...

[Cobra_Ikari]

:smallconfused: I don't get the point of the games. Neither one makes any sense from a game design perspective. I'm not convinced you can draw any legitimate conclusions from setups that are clearly farcical; the participants are essentially bound to realize that it's not on the up-and-up. If they perform the actions they are rewarded for rather than the actions they're lied to about, can that really be ascribed to any sort of moral failing? I could just as easily argue that the green-buyers are simply smarter...

And more willing to sell themselves out? =P

'sides, they might be chalking it up to a programming bug.

[SurlySeraph]

This phenomenon is visible in lots of areas outside environmentalism. It's the reason you see so many televangelists brought down by sex scandals; they think they're sacred enough and entitled to sin a bit after all the good they've done.

[Pyrian]

The possibility that televangelists might actually believe their own preaching had never even occurred to me. :smallconfused:

[Faulty]

Not surprising really. They're boarderline ethical people, who have enough of an ethical conscious to act ethical sometimes, but use those ethical acts to justify being ethically neutral or unethical at different times.

[SurlySeraph]

The possibility that televangelists might actually believe their own preaching had never even occurred to me. :smallconfused:

It's very hard to speak as passionately about something that you don't believe at least a little bit. Do they believe the "God will shower blessings on you if you give me enough money" part? Maybe. At very least they probably see saying it as for the greater good. But back on topic.

[Faulty]

People always try to justify their actions. There are no Muahahaha-I'm-Evil comic book villians. They might believe that they're doing God's work to justify the fact that they're being self-serving.

[Cobra_Ikari]

People always try to justify their actions. There are no Muahahaha-I'm-Evil comic book villians. They might believe that they're doing God's work to justify the fact that they're being self-serving.

...I have a friend I could totally see being a comic book villain, just because. And he's convinced the girl I like is one, too. =P

[Faulty]

I seriously doubt it's anything but an act, though I could be wrong. Stranger things have happened.

[Pyrian]

It's very hard to speak as passionately about something that you don't believe at least a little bit.Oh, heck, no. It's much easier. Giving "all" to a role is very different from giving all from the heart. Your average individual who can barely squeak out "I, um, kinda, y'know, like you" to the object of their affections can recite the most flowery poetry with deep verve if they don't actually care.

...Besides, "at least a little bit" leaves too much room to maneuver, anyway. Caring passionately about getting money satisfies the requirement!

EDIT:
People always try to justify their actions. There are no Muahahaha-I'm-Evil comic book villians.Yes, people always try to justify their actions, but the same person will use a questionable moral justification to one person, then turn around and give a "haha look how tough a criminal I am" "justification" to another. In reality, I doubt they were seriously considering either reasoning at the time.