Volunteering as a mechanism to reduce guilt over purchasing luxury items

Abstract

Purpose The present study aims to demonstrate that the volunteering licenses people to indulge in luxury purchase, and both heightened moral self-evaluation and reduced guilt mediate the effect of licensing on ratings of a luxury item by implementing three experimental studies. This study explained the moral licensing behavior using a passive goal guidance model: i.e., people license themselves to indulge when people perceive progress on one of their long-term goals. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, three experiments were used to test hypotheses. Findings The present paper is new in terms of three aspects. First, moral self-evaluation as a mediator is tested using a more stringent method in comparison to prior studies. Second, reduced guilt which had not yet been explicitly tested is established as a mediator. Third, the present study demonstrates that the passive goal guidance model as a valid theory in explaining the licensing behavior by showing that when people perceive progress in a long-term goal by helping others in need, they are more likely to engage in dysfunctional luxury brand purchases. Previous studies have used credentialing theory to explain this. Originality/value The present study established and confirmed that reduced guilt is a mediator in the licensing effect on the purchase of luxury items.

Volunteer and keep volunteering: a look through TSR

“…Few volunteers affirmed that doing good for others were their only motivation, which reinforces considerations from works such as Hackl et al (2005) and Jeong and Koo (2015), where we see that motivations for voluntary work may also be oriented not only for altruistic purposes but to compensate some social need. So, although doing good for others is important, personal and social motivations seem to be more determinant for most interviewees to persist.…”

“…Other papers found motivations and meanings such as empathy and concern (Berkowitz, 1972). Factors such as materialism, subjective well-being and physical health all related to volunteering performed by older people (Wei, Donthu, & Bernhardt, 2012;Younnis, McLellan, & Mazer, 2001), social recognition (Bachman et al, 2016;Fisher & Ackerman, 1998), ways of self-promotion (Hackl, Halla, & Pruckner, 2005) and reduced feelings of guilt (Jeong & Koo, 2015). Mulder et al (2015) propose that investing in the volunteers' immersion in the activity is a usually wellsucceeded action to engage them with the service.…”

“…Research has been carried out (e.g. Bussell & Forbes, 2002;Fisher & Ackerman, 1998;Jeong & Koo, 2015;Qi, Smith & Yeoman, 2018) to understand the various forms of motivation, meanings, and profiles of individuals who consume the experience of voluntarism. Additionally, the voluntary work is seen as involving a cycle in which volunteers face two moments, the "decision to volunteer" (involving their recruitment) and "committed volunteer" (involving their permanence) (Bussell & Forbes, 2003).…”

Every Saint has a Past, and Every Sinner has a Future: Influences of Regulatory Focus on Consumers’ Moral Self‐Regulation

“…The moral consistency route suggests that people repeat their past decisions, regardless of whether they were pleasant or unpleasant (e.g., Ariely, 2008;Gawronski & Strack, 2012). The moral balancing route suggests behavior in one moral direction leads consumers to behave in opposite moral directions subsequently (e.g., Jeong & Koo, 2015;Khan & Dhar, 2006;Mazar & Zhong, 2010). The route that consumers follow likely is driven by their internal guidance system, specifically, their inherent or induced self-regulatory system.…”

“…Prior research proposes two possible routes for, and thus theoretic viewpoints regarding, consumers' sequential moral decision making (e.g., Huber et al, 2008): moral balancing and moral consistency. Moral balancing means that consumers deviate from the moral stance reflected in their past decisions, such that they balance their moral and immoral decisions and act more morally after an initial immoral decision and more immorally after previous moral behavior (Conway & Peetz, 2012;Gneezy, Imas, Brown, Nelson, & Norton, 2012;Jeong & Koo, 2015;Sachdeva, Iliev, & Medin, 2009). For example, consumers may donate less money to a charity after buying cause-related products (Krishna, 2011), are more likely to cheat and lie after buying green products (Mazar & Zhong, 2010), and tend to prefer hedonic over utilitarian products after volunteering or donating (Khan & Dhar, 2006).…”