Journal of Sustainable Marketing

Ethical Consumption and Moral Identity

In recent years, ethical consumption has received increased attention from both researchers and consumers (Caruana et al., 2016; Hesse & Rundau, 2023; Yaprak & Prince, 2019). Importantly, research has indicated that consumer ethics extends beyond avoiding unethical behavior, such as improper product returns, to prosocial behaviors, such as recycling (e.g.,Weaver, Ellen, & Mathiassen,2015) or purposefully choosing products that are ethically sourced (e.g.,McEachern, 2014). Many contend that there are ethical dimensions to all consumption decisions (Carrigan, Lazell, Bosangit, & Magrizos, 2017; Hiller & Woodall, 2019); however prior research has disproportionately focused on singular aspects of products (i.e., organically produced, socially just, and/or environmentally sustainable) rather than the holistic ethicality of a product’s multifaceted background (Bray et al., 2011). Research has also moved from descriptive attempts to identify ethical consumers to more theoretical attempts to understand ethical decision-making (Carrington, Neville, & Canniford, 2015; Caruana, 2007; Yaprak & Prince, 2019). Importantly, research has demonstrated that the concept of ethical consumption is itself complex and contested (Caruana, 2007; Grauel, 2016; Szmigin, Carrigan, & Mceachern, 2009), and prior theorizations of ethical consumption have struggled to explain an apparent “attitude-behavior gap” between moral beliefs and consumer behavior (Caruana et al., 2016; Hesse & Rundau, 2023).

Ethical consumption has been shown to be the source of powerful experiences (Carrington et al., 2015; Thompson & Coskuner-Balli, 2007) and emotions (Saatcioglu & Ozanne, 2013; Xie, Bagozzi, & Grønhaug, 2015) for consumers. While ethical consumption decisions are often posited to begin with strongly-held beliefs and norms (e.g. Collins, Steg, & Koning, 2007; Nelson,2004; Osterhus,1997;Schwartz,1977) other studies have indicated that moral beliefs themselves can be constituted and formed by ethical practices (Saatcioglu & Ozanne, 2013; Thompson & Coskuner-Balli, 2007). Thus, ethical consumption can be seen as a learning process that is dynamic in nature (Bray et al., 2011; Carrington et al., 2015).

Moral identity theory accounts for this dynamic nature and thus serves as a useful theoretical lens for this study. Moral identity is one of a person’s multiple identities or roles and is conceptualized as a schema of traits and behaviors associated with promoting the welfare of others over that of the self (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Aquino et al., 2009; Bergman, 2002; Blasi, 1983; Blasi, 1993; Blasi, 2004; Reed & Aquino, 2003). One’s identity in this paper is defined as a “category label to which a consumer self-associates that is amenable to a clear picture of what a person in the category looks like, thinks, feels and does” (Reed, Forehand, Puntoni, & Warlop, 2012, p. 312). Thus, for example, a moral identity related to environmental concern might include moral beliefs such as “a good person recycles plastic” and “a good person does not leave their house lights on when they leave.” A consumer’s moral identity is balanced with other identities or roles (Markus & Kunda, 1986) that may overlap or conflict (Reed et al., 2012). Moral identity has been empirically linked to consumer motivation and behavior, but the relationship is complex and deserves further elucidation (Hardy & Carlo, 2005; Reynolds & Ceranic, 2007; Shao, Aquino, Freeman, & D, 2008; Winterich, Mittal, & Jr, 2009). In particular, moral identity is positively associated with ethical consumer behavior (Chowdhury & Fernando, 2014; Vitell et al., 2016).

Moral identity has two aspects: internalization, which is the consumer’s learned schema of what constitutes ethical behavior, and symbolization, which is how the moral identity is revealed and communicated to others (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Shao et al., 2008). Both moral identity dimensions have been related to ethical consumer behaviors (Barclay, Whiteside, & Aquino, 2014; Vitell et al., 2016). The influence of moral identity on consumption decisions varies based on its accessibility, which in turn is influenced by its centrality (relative to other identities), though accessibility can be raised and lowered by social and situational influences (Aquino et al., 2009; Leavitt, Zhu, & Aquino, 2016; Reed, Aquino, Levy, & E, 2007; Shao et al., 2008). Furthermore, while the salience of moral identity can change the way consumers evaluate ethical decisions (He, Zhu, Gouran, & Kolo, 2016; Xu & Ma, 2016), it can also make ethical behavior more habitual or automatic (Xu & Ma, 2015).

Ethical Biographies

As noted earlier, one reason for the gap in understanding ethical consumption could be the lack of attention to the “moral agency” of products themselves (Chatzidakis, 2015).Kopytoff (1986) introduced the idea of a product biography as a way of conceptualizing meanings relating to a product’s background, proposing that products, like people, have “life histories” that inform and influence the meanings attached to the objects by consumers. He highlights the controversial nature of product biographies, suggesting that there can be tensions among the meanings assigned to a particular biography by an individual, a group, and a larger culture.Kopytoff (1986) also notes that biographical meanings can have important ethical implications. Although he and other researchers (e.g., Curasi, Price, & Arnould, 2004; Price, Arnould, & Curasi, 2000) have explained decommodification and singularization of possessions after they are initially acquired by a consumer, his concept is broad enough to include a wide range of culturally-constituted and objective meanings, including those associated with the provenance of products.

In this research, we use the concept of a biography to describe a product’s provenance. WhileKopytoff (1986) primarily had in mind a “life story” of a commodity after its production, we apply this metaphor to a product’s production and distribution in order to explore the process by which consumers identify some products as “more ethical” and others as “less ethical” or “unethical.” Moral identity theory suggests the consumer will seek to consume products that are consistent with their moral identity, and it is plausible that ethical biographies might be used by consumers to assess the match between their moral identity and a product’s ethicality. In adopting this more holistic view of a consumer’s assessment of a product’s ethicality, we move away from conceptualizing ethical consumption in terms of single indicators, such as Fair Trade certification (e.g. Nicholls & Lee, 2006), organic agriculture (Cairns, Johnston, & Mackendrick, 2013), or environmental impact (e.g., Lingnau, Fuchs, & Beham, 2019). In doing so, we attempt to gain a better understanding of ethical consumption decisions and to help explain the “ethical purchase gap” (Nicholls & Lee, 2006) or “attitude-behavior gap” (Caruana et al., 2016) in ethical consumption.

Sample

Initial contact was made with the resident responsible for answering external inquiries, who invited the first author to a community meal to discuss the research and gain neighborhood approval. The study was presented to informants as an investigation of sustainable consumption practices in general. Initial informants were recruited from these early contacts, who subsequently recommended other informants following their interviews (i.e., snowballing). The objective in this sequential selection process was to seek variety in terms of informant backgrounds and consumption practices. Twenty five residents were interviewed (see Table 1), and follow-up interviews were conducted with ten informants as our investigation matured and additional questions arose. The sample was predominantly female (68%), which is representative of the adult population of the neighborhood (64% female). As indicated in the table below, the sample also includes diverse age groups, household types, and professions.

Data Collection and Analysis

Our data collection and analysis were broadly patterned after the existential-phenomenological approach (Thompson, Locander, & Pollio, 1989). Semi-structured (i.e., open-ended and non-directive) interviews were used to allow flexibility to explore novel or unexpected themes and to allow the informants to describe their consumption experiences without the imposition of etic theories or frameworks. Informants were not prompted to discuss specific products or product categories, but probes were often employed when informants brought up specific products or product categories (see Appendix A).

Most interviews were conducted in informants’ homes. Discussion was guided by the interviewer to focus on consumption choices before and after moving to the neighborhood. Specific responses were probed to determine informants’ thought processes, perceptions, and experiences. In addition to interviews, other data included field notes for all interviews; field notes from participating in and observing seven neighborhood events; photographs of residents and neighborhood events and practices; and neighborhood publications. Although the analysis centered on interview data, these additional data sources provided researchers with a deeper understanding of the motives and thought processes of informants as well as additional data points with which to test our interpretations and develop a conceptual framework.

Individual interviews were coded using NVivo in order to illuminate themes within each transcript. The research team coded individual transcripts using descriptive coding (Saldaña, 2015), to identify general themes within each transcript, such as motivations for ethical consumption, types of product meanings, and purchase decisions. Initially, our focus was on coding and drawing themes from individual sources in isolation using a hermeneutical approach (Thompson, 1997) of iterating between examining of specific parts the data and continuing to a more holistic study of the entire data set. In this way, a thorough analysis of the data set as a whole was conducted using pattern coding and thematic analysis (Saldaña, 2015) to identify a thematic structure that grew to include categories such as “biography meanings” and “dilemmas and tradeoffs” (see Appendix B). In this stage, numerous data displays were generated, including graphical displays of the coding of individual sources as well as matrix displays summarizing the coding of the entire data set. These data displays were used to compare the prevalence of certain themes in individual interviews, the pattern of individual themes across the data set, and the intersection of themes in the data set.

The emerging themes were compared with alternative explanations or interpretations among the research team, and they were triangulated with the field notes generated over the course of the data collection. For example, one alternative explanation of the themes emerging in the data was that what the research team was observing was a collection of “single issue” consumers, each one focused on a particular aspect of product provenance rather than a wholistic consideration of different aspects of provenance. However, when the team looked at the distribution of themes across informants, we found that every informant mentioned each of the categories of provenance at least once in their account. Furthermore, field notes of observations of the informants in their homes and of community events provided support for interpreting the pattern of responses as reflective of wholistic concerns about product provenance. This process of triangulation continued until the final thematic structure of the findings was agreed upon via interpretive convergence (Saldaña, 2015). Finally, each member of the research team read through the un-coded transcripts and re-considered the thematic structure in an effort to confirm consensus and address alternative explanations, thereby helping to address face validity concerns.

Processes

Informants repeatedly referred to various processes involved in product provenance in accounts of their ethical consumption decisions. Process meanings relate to the technological processes involved in the provenance of the product, from the extraction of raw materials to the retailing of finished goods. Respondents frequently used these meanings to distinguish the ethicality of one product from another. For example, the PlayStation video game system brought to mind extraction meanings for Neil:

Interviewer: …what bothers you about the electronics?

Neil: Well, from what I understand and from what I've read, certain precious metals that they’ve used to make them, particularly like some PlayStation stuff…come from these areas in Africa where people are killed for these metals [or] enslaved … to mine for these things. (Neil, 20s, IT professional)

While not an avid “gamer,” Neil does own a video game system, and, as a young male working in the IT industry, he is a likely target customer for such systems. Because electronics manufacturing involves globalized manufacturing and sourcing systems, which can make it difficult for consumers to find out about the provenance of the goods they consume (Burroughs, 2013; Guardian, 2021), it would not be surprising if Neil were a willing and uncritical consumer of game systems. Instead, Neil attached negative meanings to the materials he thinks are necessary for their construction, creating a type of “origin story” in the product’s ethical biography. Although it did not prevent him from buying a game system, he clearly feels guilt for consuming something whose supply chain might involve human suffering, even though he is not confident in this knowledge. Likewise, manufacturing processes are a source of meaning for David, an energetic serial entrepreneur:

…like, look at the buttons on your shirt and just – you know all that goes into just making that button, right? I mean, we’re talking massive factories with huge coal-fired power plants and offices and trucks all over the world that are coordinating to produce that button, right? (David, 40s, entrepreneur)

For David, even the most mundane of items – a button on a shirt – involves a vast system of provenance.

Later stages in the supply chain also generated provenance meanings. Kira, a married working mother, described why she dislikes consuming fruit in the winter:

And all that produce flying in from Chile …. I'm not doing that anymore.… Seems like a ridiculous waste of fossil fuels. It seems like a ridiculous waste, and certainly the price does not include what it's really costing [in environmental damage]. (Kira, 40s, teacher)

Instead of seeing the year-round availability of fresh produce as an advantage, Kira includes transportation and the consumption of fossil fuels in the product’s biography and makes a judgement that it is immoral.

Resources

Informants also considered the resources invested in making and marketing products when creating ethical biographies. These resource meanings include those related to natural resources, particularly the natural resources contained in products or those used or affected by the supply chain of products, but they could also relate to other scarce resources involved in the provision of products, like human labor or skill. For example, Polly, a single retiree and one of the first homeowners in the neighborhood, makes food choices based in part on the natural resources involved in the product’s ethical biography. Among other things, she states that she prefers grass-fed bison, stating that she “never buys beef.” When asked to explain why, she elaborated:

…there's a lot of reasons for buffalo. Cattle have a type of hoof that destroys the range. You have to keep moving them around, otherwise you get severe erosion because their hooves break up the sod. Buffalo don't do that. Buffalo, for a million years, lived on the plains and survived on the plains and the native grasses. They are a part of the cycle that is very self-sustaining. (Polly, 60s, retired scientist)

Polly’s biography for meat reflects that she cares deeply about the difference between cows and buffalo in terms of their effect on natural resources. Although a retired scientist, Polly had no apparent first-hand knowledge of ranching or farming, so here and in other parts of her account she demonstrates that she has committed a good deal of time and effort to try to evaluate the ethical biographies for the products she purchases. Her perception of the resources invested in and impacted by meat production forms part of the ethical biography she considers when grocery shopping for meat.

Other informants thought about the labor content invested in products when making ethical consumption decisions, related to resources. The labor content facet of resources of the ethical biography is distinct from social connections to specific people involved in the product’s making, which are described in the next section. Labor content does not connote a connection or association to a particular person or a group of people, nor is it an evaluation of social justice, but rather reflects an appreciation for the effort or labor costs invested in a product by unknown others. In some cases, this aspect of the ethical biography involved an abstract sense of the effort of multiple people across the entire supply chain. Mabel, for example, thinks all the human time and effort invested in marketing different brands and varieties of pasta and sauce is an ethical issue:

…like I'm standing in front of the dry pasta or the spaghetti sauce; that is mind boggling. Why, I just look at it and I think so much energy goes into designing these products to marketing them and human energy and real energy, to transporting them. Then throwing them away when they're outdated, advertising them and so I just think it's kind of sad. (Mabel, 50s, government administrator)

Here again we see Mabel’s concern about retailing practices, but now her focus is not on the persuasive intent or ethicality of these practices but on resources she cares about, such as electricity and human labor. Furthermore, the thought of wasting these resources creates an emotional reaction (“I just think it’s kind of sad”).

People

The third aspect of an ethical biography, people meanings, are meanings related to the people involved in the supply chain, whether they are specific individuals known to the consumer or abstract people assumed to be involved in the making and distribution of a product. People meanings are distinct from labor content (i.e. resource) meanings in ethical biographies because people meanings stem from a concern for or connection to the people involved in the supply chain, and is often a matter of social justice, rather than being an of appreciation of the labor investment in the product. For example, informants frequently included abstract perceptions of the workers involved in the production of consumer goods in constructing an ethical biography:

[Fair Trade certification] kind of just makes me feel like I'm supporting a cause, that is, a company that cares about that cause. That means that the people who are producing the product over in whichever country that might be, are, hopefully… not being exploited… that they're able to do work that they are also able to support themselves on and hopefully… not being overworked…. (Dorothy, 20s, college professor)

Dorothy is uncertain about who specifically benefits from Fair Trade certification and how exactly they might benefit, but because she has a moral concern for the treatment of workers, she still seeks products that have an ethical biography that includes Fair Trade certification. In doing so, she feels that she is helping some anonymous workers in another part of the world, thereby illustrating an aspect of her own moral identity by assisting some workers in that supply chain in terms of work conditions and pay.

In other cases, people meanings in a product’s ethical biography flowed from specific, familiar people. For example, several informants mentioned buying eggs from a neighbor on a nearby farm:

… sometimes I buy Farmer Fred’s organic eggs that are very expensive. Sometimes I buy the cage free eggs at the grocery store, but sometimes I’ll buy from him. It’s mostly just to support him. I don’t think the eggs taste any different, really. (Connie, 50s, government administrator)

First, Connie indicates that process meanings (“cage free”) are important in the product’s ethical biography, but people meanings are an additional consideration. Connie expressly states that she did not buy the eggs because of any perceived superiority of the eggs themselves; instead, her moral concern for the well-being of her neighbor motivates her to use more of her limited budget to buy eggs that are otherwise indistinguishable from the cage-free ones at the grocery store. Here again, we see how informants attempted to match facets of their own moral identity with the ethical biography of the products they purchased.

Places

Place meanings associated with the geographical places involved in the production and distribution of a product constituted a fourth aspect of ethical biographies mentioned by our informants. In some instances, informants discussed far away or unfamiliar places they had never visited:

… if you go to [U.S. grocery store chain] Publix and you buy their organic apple juice which probably comes from a pretty good place, it's made in the USA. I don't know exactly where in the USA, but it's like $6.50 for, I don't know, it's like half a gallon. … But at Walmart for like $1.50 you can get a gallon and a half of apple juice, like, made in [far away country]. And I don't know even know how they do that [for that price]. (Lacey, 30s, health professional)

In this excerpt, Lacey exhibits a moral concern for taking care of her family by attempting to select “the right” apple juice. She is uncertain exactly where the apple juice comes from, but that does not prevent her from including a place-related meaning in the product’s ethical biography. She assumes the United States is “a pretty good place” for making apple juice, while in her perception, many faraway or unfamiliar places are less desirable. The source of this moral judgment is unclear, but what is clear is that she feels a moral pull to purchase apple juice with an ethical biography that includes a US origin.

Other place meanings were derived from places familiar to the informant, particularly, a nearby farm:

Yeah, [locally grown food] has pleasant associations. Because [the farm] makes it more concrete; the idea of locally grown sounds nice, but that direct connection to your food… somehow feels more connected when I can look out my door and see food being grown right there. (Gloria, 20s, tutor and dance instructor)

Consuming food from a local farm was frequently mentioned as more ethical than consuming food from the supermarket. In some cases, this judgment was connected to process or people meanings, but there was also a sense in which “buying local” was a moral value independent of other considerations. It is apparent that informants were very sensitive to places where products were produced, and these place meanings influenced their purchase decisions and consumption experiences.

In summary, informants in this study sought to learn about the ethical biography of the products they consumed. They demonstrated awareness of and attention to ethical biographies stemming from the processes, resources, people, and places involved in making and distributing products they consumed. Ethical biographies related to all stages of the marketing process, from natural resource extraction to the place of purchase, were used to determine whether specific products were consistent with their moral identity. However, as we will explore in the following section, this evaluation process was complex and rife with conflict.

Identity Conflict Created by Product Biographies

Although our informants sought out ethical biographies in the pursuit of ethical consumption, they also noted that product biographies could pose challenges to consumption decision making in three ways. First, there was sometimes a consumer identity conflict between two or more of their moral identities. Second, there were identity conflicts between a consumer’s moral identity and another aspect of that consumer’s identity. And, last, there were sometimes conflicts between two different competing ethical aspects of a product’s biography. As noted earlier, the self-concept is multifaceted and comprises multiple identities or roles (Markus & Kunda, 1986; Reed et al., 2012), and, as noted by Reed, Forehand, Puntoni, & Warlop, (2012 , p. 318), “Consumption can often lead to identity conflict, or provide ways to resolve it.” Our informants often struggled as they attempted to balance complex and conflicting identities and values when making consumption decisions (c.f. Carrington, Neville, & Canniford, 2015). Furthermore, it was often difficult for informants to find product biographies that fully matched their own moral identity. Frequently it was difficult to find enough information to even construct complete ethical biographies of specific products.

Conflict between moral identities. First, informants frequently encountered a conflict between their competing moral identities, such as the moral identity of “world citizen” and the moral identity of “parent.” Our informants exhibited overlapping but unique identities that were other-focused rather than self-interested. In contrast with a simplistic view that consumption decisions are either ethical or not, informants felt tension among multiple moral beliefs. For example, Kristy is a working mother who cares deeply about protecting the environment, but she also loves her children and feels a moral responsibility for their welfare. She describes the tension between these moral identities of “environmentalist” and “mother:”

I guess what I wonder right now is will [my newborn son] ever have anything new, and will it ever bother him? The way we are operating now, there’s no need for him to have anything brand new, and that’s okay. And yet, our culture says, “New is best.” …so there’s been no resolution of that conflict in my life…. It is hard to stop purchasing, particularly when you have children…. (Kristy, 30s, Minister)

Later Kristy describes the complexity of deciding how to provide diapers for her baby. In a nod to her “environmentalist” identity, she primarily uses cloth diapers, but when she needs to use disposable diapers, she agonizes over the purchase decision:

We use cloth, but when we need to use disposable, my conflict right now is I buy green diapers online, and they are shipped to me from Amazon… taking into account the carbon footprint that that entails. But it is more sustainable for me in other terms, in that I don’t have to drive in the car to buy things, the way they package them in bulk, and I get them and have them for a longer period – I’m having to buy them less often. (Kristy, 30s, Minister)

In Kristy’s account, we see the conflict between competing moral identities as she seeks to symbolize her different moral identities with her consumption decisions regarding her children. This conflict is not between self-centered identities and a single moral identity, as might be the case if she deliberated between spending money on toys for her children versus spending money on a trip to Europe to enact her (hypothetical) “world traveler” identity. Instead, she feels conflict between different schemas of how she feels “environmentalists” and “mothers” should think and act.

Conflict between moral vs. other identities. A second type of conflict occurred when informants felt tension between a moral identity and another identity in their consumption decisions. A consumer’s moral identity is only one among several identities taken up by consumers in their various roles, and this identity can be more or less accessible in different situations (Aquino et al., 2009). Our informants indicated that they often experienced tension between choosing products with biographies that were consistent with their moral identity and choosing products with biographies that were more desirable for their other identities, such as “employee.” For example, Samantha, a Peace Corps veteran currently working for a non-profit service organization, reports a conflict between her desire to protect people and the environment and her desire to stay within her limited budget, itself an outcome of her altruistic decision to work for a series of non-profit organizations:

Like I heard that Macs are a little bit more Earth-friendly because they’re not slave children that are putting together your computer kind of thing, but it’s like I can’t drop almost $3,000 for a laptop; I’ll go for the cheap one. (Samantha, 20s, non-profit administrator)

Samantha’s need for a computer was related to her identity as a non-profit administrator, and she desired certain performance criteria to be successful in that identity. However, she also needed to balance her “environmentalist,” “social justice advocate,” and “money manager” identities simultaneously, making her buying decision that much more complex. She attempted to find a computer with a matching ethical biography, even if some aspects of the biography were based on subjective or specious information (“I heard…”). Ultimately, though, her budget constraint limited her to the “cheap” options with less desirable ethical biographies. Other informants even indicated a simultaneous overlap among some identities and conflict with others. For example, Lacey discusses the tension she experiences in shopping for her family:

Our location makes it hard because there is a Walmart superstore right around the corner. And with a child, sometimes it's just easier to go to the Walmart superstore. And that place is just full of evilness. I mean, I used to at least not be aware it was full of evilness… but now I'm at least looking for the one organic item that they hide in the back. (Lacey, 30s, healthcare professional)

Lacey finds it “easier” to go shopping at the nearby Walmart, and saving time and energy is likely beneficial to her own welfare and thus allows her to enact one or more non-moral identities. On the other hand, however, her time and energy are important family resources that can also be devoted to caring for her children as part of her “mother” moral identity. In either case, her beliefs about the ethical biographies of the products available at Walmart make her feel guilty about shopping there because she feels she is not being true to her other moral identities of “environmentalist” and “social justice advocate.” Nevertheless, she attempts to reduce her guilt by purchasing the products with ethical biographies that she believes are the most consistent with her values, among the choices available at Walmart.

Conflict between aspects of an ethical biography . A third type of conflict our informants experienced in attempting to make ethical purchases occurred when different aspects of a product’s ethical biography conflicted or were consistent with conflicting identities. For example, Kristina notes how an organic peach from Oregon (thousands of miles from where Kristina lives) has an ethical biography that includes a positive process meaning, organic, that is in keeping with her values, but it also has a negative place meaning that is less desirable, because it is shipped from a distant location.

… it doesn't make sense to buy a peach [in the state of] Georgia that was flown in from [the state of] Oregon. It just doesn't make sense, just because it has organic wrapped around it. … it might be better for you technically, because you might have less chemicals or this or that, but you've put way more chemicals into the environment to get that peach here. (Kristina, 20s, non-profit administrator)

Kristina does not describe a taste preference, but instead notes that where her peaches were grown - Georgia or Oregon - has different ethical implications in terms of transportation. This account also illustrates a conflict between process and place meanings: should she buy organic from a faraway place or non-organic from a nearby place? One she perceives to fit her moral concern for the environment, while the other she perceives to fit her moral concern for her health.

Kristina highlights how difficult it can be to find products with ethical biographies that symbolize multiple moral identities. Her and others’ accounts in our study revealed how becoming more ethical as a consumer in an abstract sense means increasing the number of moral identities consumers must balance and the ethical biography meanings they have to consider, thereby increasing the complexity and tension of decision making. Another example is provided by Adam, a stay-at-home parent who has a graduate degree in environmental science. His environmental and health concerns motivate his choice of groceries for his family, but he finds different aspects of product biographies to be in tension:

“I'll buy organic when I can but price is not so much important when it comes to food, I think, because you're putting it into yourself. So it's more important to buy good quality. … So as unrefined or close to the original source as possible. …Not the source, in terms of distance traveled…. for instance, me driving down to Whole Foods. That would be like twice the environmental footprint even if I bought organic then going over to Publix and buying conventional food because I can walk to Publix.” (Adam, 30s, stay at home parent)

Adam wants to do what is best for his family and for the environment. Ideally he would buy food that is unprocessed, organic, and environmentally friendly, but there is not a clear choice. Is organic food better for the environment if he has to drive farther to buy it, or would conventional food be better if he can walk to the store? How should the health benefits of organic food be weighted in that comparison? There is not a straightforward answer to these questions, even to a motivated, well-informed consumer like Alex.

Buying decisions become even more complex when self-interested identities must be balanced. For example, Mabel struggles to find the right product even for something as mundane as laundry detergent:

So when I make a decision to buy one type of ECOS laundry detergent versus soap nuts versus buying Arm & Hammer at the grocery store, you know, I try and understand. What are soap nuts? How do they work? And they sort of work, but it doesn't really get all the dirt out of everything, but it could work okay. Or versus ECOS--are the claims made by ECOS laundry detergent really real or is it just the kind of advertising, like Johnson & Johnson, you know? Or the Clorox line of green products or--I try and find out: is that real? (Mabel, 50s, government administrator)

Mabel’s concern about the environmental impact of laundry detergent reduces her consideration set but also introduces a concern over product efficacy, a concern commonly reported about environmentally-friendly products (Luchs et al., 2010; Olson, 2013). She even worries whether she can trust the available indicators of sustainability, or whether it is just “advertising.”

Thus, our informants reported that ethical biographies, while helpful to them in achieving ethical consumption, at times created personal dilemmas and identity conflicts. Our informants struggled to balance competing moral and non-moral identities as they attempted to achieve consistency with those identities in their purchase decisions. Achieving this consistency was made even more complex by the fact that ethical biographies were themselves complex and could embody competing moral values. It is little wonder, then, that many of our informants expressed frustration and even a sense of hopelessness, as indicated by Kristina’s quote at the very beginning of this article.

Coping Strategies and Decision Rules

Another indication that ethical consumption is difficult for consumers is the coping strategies and decision rules that informants developed in response to the perceived conflicts and dilemmas. These coping strategies included abstaining from consumption of a particular type of product, abdicating responsibility for buying decisions, allowing one meaning or consumption goal to trump others, or avoiding the formation of negative product meanings in the first place.

Abstaining from consumption. Madelyn, a married freelance journalist who chooses to repair worn or broken products instead of replacing them, illustrates the first strategy, abstaining from the consumption of a particular type of product:

Yeah, I know I can get a pair of shoes cheaper than getting my pair of shoes repaired, but I get my shoes repaired, and it's not about the money. It's something about staying out of the cycle. Just -- I don't want to create more demand for more crap from China. Might as well just fix what I have. (Madelyn, 30s, journalist)

Here again, budget is a concern for Madelyn, but so is what she perceives as a “cycle” of wasteful consumption and disposal as well as the negative place meanings related to China. Although affordable replacements are available, those replacements bring to mind thoughts of adding to the demand for shoddily-made and perhaps unsustainably-produced products that she feels are uncritically purchased by other consumers.

Abdicating responsibility. Another coping strategy referenced by informants is to abdicate responsibility for the decision, as illustrated by Julia:

Interviewer: I was just wondering how knowing more about how the food is actually produced has influenced how you look at food now and how you shop for food.

Jane: Well basically, I’ve turned over shopping for food to my husband.

Interviewer: Because it was too hard?

Jane: It’s just a hard thing for me, I mean, I don’t know. Also, there’s the whole choice thing. There are so many choices. (Julia, 30s, landscape architect)

Like Mabel’s deliberation over laundry detergent, a trip to the grocery store is more of an ordeal for Julia than a routine errand. Because the decisions are so complicated for her, she would rather her husband do the shopping so that she would not have to expend the cognitive resources such trips would require and perhaps experience guilt or tension over having to make compromises. A different type of abdication is illustrated by Samantha, who earlier discussed her budget constraints when buying a laptop:

Like that website, “Better World Shopper”…. It makes it kind of easy because if you’re going to buy coffee, baby diapers, ice cream, things like that, they just rank [them]. Every product is different, even if it comes from the same company. And I don’t even know what they look into, but it gives me some guidelines. (Samantha, 20s, non-profit administrator)

Even though she expresses uncertainty about the criteria used, Samantha prefers to defer to a perceived expert for recommendations on what to buy rather than expend the effort of determining products’ ethical biography and attempting to find a match with her moral identity.

Prioritizing one goal over others. A third coping strategy is to let one goal or identity take precedence, and to rationalize away the negative implications for the other goals. For example, Neil rationalizes his purchases of new electronics:

You know, I guess I feel like it’s one of those give and takes, and it’s like, “Well, okay. I’m going to hold on to the machine really long. I’m going to do my best to recycle the things that I don’t use…. (Neil, 20s, IT Professional)

As seen earlier, Neil expressed ethical concerns about the manufacture of game systems and computers, but here he describes a competing desire to have the latest technology. To resolve this tension, Neil gives in to his desire for new technology, but he bargains with his own conscience, promising himself to extend the lifecycle of the electronics he purchases and to recycle the materials used in them. Likewise, Dorothy feels that she must buy clothes for work that may not meet her ideals of social responsibility:

… if I was a farmer, sure, I'd buy all my clothes at the thrift store. But for teaching purposes I feel like I have to look kind of professional. So I always feel that tension, that's probably the area of my consumption where I feel the most tension … because you see the "made in Vietnam" and you feel guilty - like, [it was made] by small children. (Dorothy, 20s, college professor)

Here, Dorothy faces a conflict between clothes consistent with her values (thrift store clothing) and the clothing she feels is expected of her as a college professor. She resolves this tension by buying the clothing consistent with her professional role, but she assuages her guilt by telling herself that her clothes are forced on her by the demands of her job.

Prioritizing one aspect of an ethical biography. Some informants tried to balance their competing interests by prioritizing some desirable product meanings over others. Layla comes to the conclusion that she cannot meet all of her competing priorities when shopping for food:

And I'm still working on pulling all that together and what's the best, like should I buy organic strawberries versus conventionally grown strawberries? I mean do I want to spend my money that way? I'm older, does it really matter? … So there's always this kind of decision making thing going on in my head and I guess a couple of years ago I came to the conclusion I was going to spend my money on the meats. You know, I was going to make sure that whatever meat we ate was raised and processed in such a way that it … wasn't in unhealthy living conditions and the animal was slaughtered in a proper fashion. (Lily, 50s, government administrator)

Lily, like other informants, faces constraints on her time and money. In addition, she has concern for the environment, for her own health, and for the wellbeing of the animals that are being raised for food. Instead of investing in a cognitively-taxing decision process for each item, she decides to prioritize health, environmental, and animal rights concerns when she shops for meat but let pragmatic concerns dominate for other foods.

Avoiding biographical information. Finally, some informants report intentionally avoiding the formation of product meanings so as to avoid conflict altogether:

Go yes, for sure, there are times when somebody will put on a documentary and I’ll be like, “I can’t – I don’t [want to watch].” . . . Because it’s more work. Because–well, taking in the information is a certain amount of work, energy, attention, but once you know things, you have to act on them; your conscience won’t let you [ignore them]. (Gloria, 20s, tutor and dance instructor)

Gloria and her roommates are concerned about the environment and social issues, and as a result, they frequently watch documentaries such as Food, Inc. and Tapped. However, Gloria dislikes the obligation that learning this information places on her, specifically, the obligation to expend more effort to find products that are not harmful to the environment or to animals and people. Thus, rather than increasing the “work” involved in shopping for mundane products, Gloria seeks to avoid learning about the ways in which products might not be consistent with her values and consumption goals. Instead of rationalizing her behavior or abdicating responsibility for her choices, she seeks to stay intentionally and blissfully unaware of the conflicts posed by mundane products choices.

In summary, the observation that our informants developed these coping strategies or decision rules illustrates that the process of matching one’s moral identity to a product’s ethical biography is not easy or straightforward for consumers. These strategies also could directly contribute to the attitude-behavior gap, as all could result in purchases of products that are less ethical on one or more dimensions.