Implicit Ethical Consumerism: Development and Cross-cultural Validation of a Novel Affect-Misattribution Measure

The literature has documented a pervasive attitude-behavior gap in ethical consumption, whereby many consumers do not consistently translate their expressed positive attitudes toward ethical products into behavior. For marketers investing in social responsibility initiatives, this suggests that more accurate segmentation and demand forecasting may require an implicit measure of ethical consumerism. This study draws from literatures in ethical consumption and the psychology of attitudes to develop and validate such a measurement tool. Across three pretests and three studies, findings show that our implicit measure (based on the Affect Misattribution Procedure [AMP]) is cross-culturally robust in predicting ethical consumption behavior beyond effects of explicit measures. Overall, this study indicates that academics and practitioners can enhance their predictive capabilities regarding ethical consumption behavior by integrating the AMP-inspired measure with traditional explicit measures, rather than solely relying on the latter.