Striving to Be Good: Moral Balance in Consumer Choice

Consumers pursue higher-order goals, morality being one of the important motivational forces. Preserving a morally good sense of self is at the heart of these pursuits. When faced with consumption choices that evoke moral considerations, consumers may face a conflict between their long-term, higher order goals and short-term, lower-order preferences. Using an analogy to the mental accounting framework, it is proposed that when faced with such choices, consumers activate a moral choice calculus that enables them to maintain an overall positively balanced sense of a good self should they choose to deviate from the moral ideal.



Citation:

Mariam Beruchashvili, Linda Price, and James Gentry (2005) ,"Striving to Be Good: Moral Balance in Consumer Choice", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 7, eds. Karin M. Ekstrom and Helene Brembeck, Goteborg, Sweden : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 303-307.

Authors

Mariam Beruchashvili, UNL
Linda Price, UNL
James Gentry, UNL



Volume

E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 7 | 2005



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