Green consumption does not make people cheat: Three replications of a moral licensing experiment

A recent study (Mazar & Zhong, 2010) argued that green consumption may serve as a moral license and thus lead to subsequent dishonest behavior. In our three replications of the study (total N = 1,274), two of which were preregistered, participants’ level of green consumption was manipulated by having them purchase goods in either a green or conventional store. Three different tasks which allowed participants to cheat for monetary profit were used to measure dishonesty across the experiments. We found no effect of green consumption on subsequent honesty. These results cast doubt on the size of the effect found in the original study and suggest that green consumption is unlikely to trigger a cross-domain moral licensing effect.

近期一项研究（Mazar & Zhong, 2010）提出，绿色消费可能充当道德许可的媒介，从而引发后续的不诚实行为。在我们的三项研究复现中（总样本量为1,274），其中两项为预先注册的研究，通过让参与者分别在绿色商店或传统商店购买商品来操纵其绿色消费水平。实验中采用了三项不同的任务，允许参与者为了货币收益而作弊，以此衡量实验中的不诚实程度。我们发现绿色消费对后续诚实度没有显著影响。这些结果对原研究中发现的效果规模提出了质疑，并暗示绿色消费不太可能引发跨领域的道德许可效应。