Tainted Initiatives – Environmental domain with deception

Previous studies have illustrated that people react negatively when organisations engage in win-win initiatives that simultaneously benefit both society (e.g., prosocial) and the organization (e.g., profit), and might evaluate them less favourably than equivalent self-interested initiatives without any prosocial benefits (e.g., sole profit benefits). This effect has been called “tainted altruism” (Lin-Healy & Small, 2013; Newman & Cain, 2014; Makov & Newman, 2016; Carlson & Zaki, 2018). A criticism of previous studies examining tainted altruism relates to the role of deception. Alempaki et al., (2018, 2020) show that a tainted altruism effect is more likely to be observed when there is a divergence between the actual and the stated motivation of an act. The effect will appear if the act is portrayed as motivated by prosocial reasons when, in fact, the actual motive is to make profit. The focus of this study is to investigate the tainting effect in the environmental domain and to further explore the role of deception. Deception occurs if an action is motivated by environmental reasons when, in fact, the actual motive is to make a profit. This study will also explore whether the presence of a side benefit for the consumer (i.e., a triple-win) affects participants’ judgements even when they have been deceived. The research questions can be summarised as follows: 1. Will the tainting effect occur in the environmental domain when the evaluator of the initiative is deceived personally by the company? 2. Will the tainting effect occur in the environmental domain when the evaluator of the initiative is deceived personally by the company, but the evaluator is also provided with a benefit? In this experiment, participants are randomly allocated to three groups in a between-subjects design. The study will use the vignette methodology. In all groups, participants are presented with a hypothetical scenario of a food company (Starfish Cornflakes) that has modified product packaging by making it smaller. In all groups, participants learn that the true motivation behind the packaging change is to increase the company’s profits. Two aspects will be manipulated across the three groups. First, whether there is a divergence in motivations between the actual motivation for the initiative and the stated motivation. Two, whether consumers gain a side benefit. In summary, the three conditions (IVs) are: • Profit: Participants learn that the change in product packaging was motivated by profit. The product price is unchanged. • Environment deception + Profit: This condition is identical to the first condition. However, in this condition, participants also learn that the company is now (deceptively) claiming the packaging change was motivated by environmental concerns. • Environment deception + Profit + Consumer: This condition is identical to the second. Except, instead of learning that the product price is unchanged, consumers receive a price discount due to the initiative. Participants will rate the initiative across four dimensions (DVs) to examine the tainting effect: Morality, Pro-environment, Support and Honesty. Alempaki, D., Isoni, A., Kato, Y., Read, D., & Wei, H. (2020). Deception aversion and consumer responses to sustainability initiatives (SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 3640256). Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3640256 Alempaki, D., Isoni, A., & Read, D. (2018). Tainted nudge. Unpublished Manuscript. Carlson, R. W., & Zaki, J. (2018). Good deeds gone bad: Lay theories of altruism and selfishness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 75, 36–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.11.005 Lin-Healy, F., & Small, D. A. (2013). Nice Guys Finish Last and Guys in Last Are Nice: The Clash Between Doing Well and Doing Good. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(6), 692–698. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550613476308 Makov, T., & Newman, G. E. (2016). Economic gains stimulate negative evaluations of corporate sustainability initiatives. Nature Climate Change, 6(9), 844–846. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3033 Newman, G. E., & Cain, D. M. (2014). Tainted Altruism: When Doing Some Good Is Evaluated as Worse Than Doing No Good at All. Psychological Science, 25(3), 648–655. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613504785