Exposed: green consumers' dirty little secrets | Hacker News Reader

Exposed: green consumers' dirty little secrets

newscientist.com

37 pointsaraneae22 comments

I think it comes down to motive and the degree of selfishness behind actions.

For example, when someone buys green, or votes Obama (or Ron Paul or George Bush), whether they do it for themselves or for others. If they feel that they've made some sacrifice in taking the action - then they're likely to feel that something is owed to them. This could be social recognition, the license to get away with something questionable .. whatever it is.

If on the other hand they do it for themselves - "I vote Obama cuz I want healthcare" or "I bought this green bag cuz it serves me better / lets me dump it anywhere knowing that it'll just disintegrate after a few weeks... " whatever it may be - then they're less likely want something more to make up for the "sacrifice".

If I'm right, then we should try to make our customers feel as if they've won whenever they buy / interact with us ;-). "You clicked on THAT button! AWESOM!!!!E!" =)

While your conclusion was a bit silly, I still thought your comment was pretty insightful.

Thanks =). It was meant as a trailing joke. Can you imagine actually getting that every time you press a button? =)

> If I'm right, then we should try to make our customers feel as if they've won whenever they buy / interact with us ;-). "You clicked on THAT button! AWESOM!!!!E!" =)

Already discovered. Commonly employed tactic by shady fly-by-night companies. Nigerian scams rely on the same principal too, although they count on you secretly feeling like you're lucky/won something, rather than telling you that you have.

I posted this because of our discussion on this post yesterday:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1207136

It seems that "self-control fatigue," as they tested it, is indistinguishable from the "moral self-licensing" discussed here.

There's an essay on lesswrong that also addresses the implications of Mazar and Zhong's experiments: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1d9/doing_your_good_deed_for_the_day...

"This meshes nicely with a self-signalling conception of morality. If part of the point of behaving morally is to convince yourself that you're a good person, then once you're convinced, behaving morally loses a lot of its value."

Another example of moral self-licensing the essay brings up is how people having lunch after attending church tend to be more abusive with waitstaff and tip poorly.

The source for your last sentence: http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2009/08/bait-and-sw...

>"The single most damaging phenomenon to the witness of Christianity in America today is the collective behavior of the Sunday morning lunch crowd. Never has a more well-dressed, entitled, dismissive, haughty or cheap collection of Christians been seen on the face of the earth.

I exaggerate of course. [...]"

I find this quite interesting as whenever I've been out with Christians they've always seemed well behaved, inhibited from complaining even about bad service and terrible food and overgenerous in their tips; my wife for example. But we're in the UK.

Observer bias is highly likely.

So, the logic is that green consumers would think they have already done something good and so they can afford to be a bit loose in other things?

This logic looks like BS to me.

And why is this about green consumers in particular. This logic applies to anyone who does anything good in general. And what exactly is the 'dirty little' secret here?

And why is this about green consumers in particular.

Because that's what they tested. It doesn't look to me like they're necessarily saying anything about people interested in the environment. It seems more to me like they think that doing some morally-good thing makes people think like they've got a freebie coming.

"Because that's what they tested" is bad/fallacious reasoning.

That is like saying males in NYC have ears because they only saw them, when all humans and most animals have ears too

Is the statement 'NYC males have ears' incorrect? No. Misleading ? Definitely.

This might apply to green consumers, but talking about green consumers is misleading when this applies to anyone that did anything good.

"such as the recent finding that people in the UK who have made their homes more energy-efficient are more likely to turn up their heating or keep it on for longer"

As far as this goes it's likely that people assume that with thermostats and modern heating systems, once the insulation is in, the house can be maintained at a higher temperature or heated longer for a lower cost in fuel/money.

After all why insulate your home if you can't make it warmer?

That's like people buying jumpers, they wear them, they don't put them away so that they never need to buy a new one.

Generally speaking consumers have no direct information as to how much heating fuel is being used and what the cost is. Heating costs fluctuate so much and have risen rapidly, any increase after insulation installation would be assumed to be increasing fuel costs.

In short, I don't think this fits the general model.

Is there some scientific methodology for this kind of trial?

If I knew I was participating in an experiment and I get presented with this kind of artificial test then I know they are looking for some kind of response, and my actions are highly liked to be influenced by the fact that I know I am under observation.

According to the paper (http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/newthinking/greenproducts.pdf) the sample sizes seem pretty small. I'm no statistician, but is it really valid to draw conclusion of people's behaviour from a sample size of < 100 people??

It probably works in reverse too - if you've done a bad deed it will be easier to trick you into doing something "good".

Who sponsored/paid for the research - that is also important. Indeed, it is liker saying that more green, let's say Europe, is full of cheats compared to USA, where people are "more conventional". There was by the way report that many studies are fraudulent nowadays. Perhaps this is the case.

The title of the article is a little misleading, I think. It's really not about how being green makes you a cheater any more than being about how voting for Obama makes you a racist. I don't think the research is implying anything in particular about people who buy green, other than the fact that they believe they are doing something moral. Other self-perceived moral acts will presumably also result in an increased likelihood of cheating later as well.

Well, slightly OT but my work is actually in the green field (employer shall remain unnamed for this one).

What we've found is that there's a huge difference between opinion polls on consumers' desire for green stuff, and their actions. Everyone says, for example, that they'd be willing to pay X% extra to buy a similar product that is environmentally responsible - but in reality that number is actually very, very close to 0%.

This is very frustrating to me - consumers talk a lot of shit about companies needing to be environmentally responsible, but from the metrics I've seen first-hand, even making them pay a single penny extra for it is too much.

I am surprised that you would expect anything else. As Milton Friedman famously said, 'Never listen to what people say. Look at how they vote with their feet.'

http://www.druglibrary.org/special/friedman/socialist.htm

Well, it was pretty obvious the polls weren't going to be on the dot, but I was expecting consumers to claim to be willing to pay Y, but in reality only pay X, where X < Y.

I never expected X = 0.

X != 0

lim($price -> 0) [ c * $price ] = X

(Consider values less than $0.01 to be legal)

You're essentially right, but not quite.

P.S. make sure if you make your product more 'green' people are aware of this. If it's not clear, people may not understand why the price is higher, and when presented with two goods you believe are completely equal you will naturally choose the cheaper one.

I wonder if the price differed much in the study, between "green" and conventional products. Perhaps those who bought green felt like they were forced to spend more, and were owed something because of unfair pricing rather than moral superiority.

There is a difference between fraudulent (purposefully misrepresenting something) and wrong.

Oh, yeah - that what I meant - fraudulent. Delebirately make a bad research/sensationalist research to get publicity, so necessary in academic world.

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