Be On The Lookout For Green Shoppers
December 21st, 2009 Posted in activists
Somehow not so surprising
University of Toronto — Participants in a study who were deemed “green” conscious were found to cheat and steal more in later tests.
A reported study by the University of Toronto’s Rotman’s Business School, examined a sample of people who were asked to purchase goods at a grocery store.
Those who gathered more ‘green’ or environmentally friendly items were less likely to later share money with an anonymous recipient or more likely to lie or cheat on a subsequent quiz.
What the authors also found, however, was that simply being exposed to green products led to better ethical behaviour than did the act of purchasing green products, a phenomenon known as “priming.”
photo credit: just.Luc (just.Censored)
December 21st, 2009 at 11:20 pm
This reminds me of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” theory, which postulates that all things being equal, consumers will choose the product that they believe provides an unmeasurable benefit to their community or ecosystem. Although there exists debate among modern economists as to the interpretation of the invisible hand reference in the Wealth of Nations.