The role of social acceptability and guilt in unethical consumer behavior: Following the crowd or their own moral compass?

Consumers may choose to behave opportunistically and unethically in dealing with firms which can affect the firms’ finances. Both external and internal forces guide this choice for consumers: the fear of sanctions for acting in a manner that society considers unacceptable, and guilt resulting from violating their own internal ethical standards. This paper examines how the interaction of these forces determines the likelihood of unethical consumer behavior. We find that when an unethical behavior is more socially acceptable, even if illegal, individual differences in guilt proneness have greater bearing on a consumer’s decision to behave unethically. However, the role of individual guilt proneness matters less when the unethical behavior is less socially acceptable. The results are consistent across numerous settings in which the firm offers varying degrees of license to consumer to act opportunistically, and potentially unethically (i.e., abusing merchandise return policies, illegally downloading media, and paying small amounts in pay-what-you-wish situations). Our findings reveal boundary conditions of the effect of guilt proneness on ethical behavior suggesting that managers potentially can curtail unethical behavior through making a behavior less socially acceptable, or by influencing the context of the unethical behavior.