Essays on ethics and identity in consumer behavior

This dissertation uses experimental methods to explore ethical and identity based biases that impact consumer decisions. In the first essay I explore how an effect of indirectness impacts how participants make ethical judgments towards companies as well as their own behaviors. In four studies I show that participants view indirect harms carried out through intermediaries to be less unethical than direct harms under separate evaluations. However, in decision contexts supporting more reflective judgments (joint evaluations) participants are less likely to show a bias in favor of indirect harm. In the second essay, I explore how identity mechanisms drive an "underdog effect" where participants show more favorable evaluations of products which have underdog brand biographies. I develop an underdog scale which defines an underdog to have both external disadvantage and passion and determination. I argue that underdog brand biographies are effective because consumers react positively when they see the underdog aspects of their own lives being reflected in branded products. In four studies I demonstrate that the underdog effect is driven by identity mechanisms and show that the effect is (a) mediated by consumers' identification with the brand, (b) greater for consumers who strongly self-identify as underdogs, (c) stronger in purchase contexts that are symbolic of identity, and (d) stronger in cultures in which underdog narratives are part of the national identity. In a third essay I explore how consumers are more likely to morally disengage when considering a product made with sweatshop labor. I show that consumers are much more likely to justify the use of sweatshop labor when desire for a product is high, or the product is in a self-relevant context. Furthermore, I present evidence for a mediated moderation where beliefs about sweatshop labor use moderates the impact of desirability on purchase intention, and moral disengagement mediates this process.