In a groundbreaking new study, a Florida State University marketing researcher and her colleagues revealed a complex moral landscape underlying everyday consumption practices, particularly relating to self-care, just in time for the holiday shopping season.
The study, published this fall in the Journal of Consumer Research, shows that consumers navigate moral judgments in seemingly mundane choices about personal care and well-being, says Colleen Harmeling, the Dr. Persis E. Rockwood associate professor of marketing in the FSU College of Business.
"What makes this research so compelling is that we weren't initially searching for a moral narrative," Harmeling said. "We were studying how people care for themselves, and suddenly, morality emerged in unexpected spaces."
The study builds on Harmeling's growing emphasis on morality, digital environments, intricate social systems and consumers' health decision-making.
In the study, Harmeling and co-authors Rachel E. Hochstein from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Ela Veresiu from York University discovered that people, often unknowingly, hold different meanings for concepts central to their consumption such as "self" and "care."
Often, vulnerable life transitions such as becoming a parent, when individuals get bombarded with opposing advice about care for themselves and their families, can bring these conflicting meanings to the forefront and trigger deep introspection. The conflicting meanings thus can be a source of imagined or realized confrontations with others that lead consumers to moralize, or categorize as right or wrong, their consumption practices.
The study identified four primary strategies consumers use to justify their self-care choices: denouncing (asserting moral righteousness), positioning (indicating moral inclusivity), balancing (employing moral licensing) and ritualizing (expressing moral autonomy).
"We find that nearly every choice can be moralized by someone. Thus, the process we uncover has implications for how consumers see themselves, the world and their roles in it."
– Colleen Harmeling, Dr. Persis E. Rockwood associate professor of marketing
The research drew data from various sources, including news media, social media advertisements, consumer-generated content, interviews and personal diaries.
To illustrate the study, Harmeling used a historical debate about breakfast: "Consumers must reconcile perspectives about reported health benefits of intermittent fasting and suggestions to skip breakfast entirely amid cultural forces that trumpet breakfast as the most important meal of the day," she said.
"We discovered that how you decide to care for yourself largely depends on what you find is morally good," Harmeling said. "We often get advice that's completely counter to that, and so we have to make a choice."
She added: "Some might balance the conflicting perspectives by eating a nutritious breakfast four days a week and fasting three days while others might position their choice as just one valid approach among many."
The holiday season adds another layer to the moral complexity of care.
"Gift-giving is an occasion where you're often suggesting ways for others to care for themselves," Harmeling said. "So, you are inflicting a moral position in many ways implicitly, sometimes very explicitly, and so morality comes into play for not only the gift giver but the gift receiver."
Harmeling and her co-authors observed the moralization process they identify in their research relates to how consumers see themselves and their roles in society.
"We find that nearly every choice can be moralized by someone," Harmeling said. "Thus, the process we uncover has implications for how consumers see themselves, the world and their roles in it."
"Ultimately, understanding this deeply imbedded moral system can profoundly shape our ability to nurture a compassionate world," Harmeling said.
