Price-ethicality association: When price discounts inhibit ethical purchasing

The authors demonstrate that consumers form a robust association between price and ethicality, separate from the traditional price-quality association, which significantly influences their ethical purchase decisions. Grounded in compensatory inference theory and signaling theory, six studies reveal that when consumers encounter ethical products offered at discount prices, they perceive that the products cannot be genuinely ethical and avoid purchasing them. The adverse effect of discount prices on ethical consumption is explained by lower product ethicality perceptions and is prevalent among those who are more ethically minded. The final study shows that marketers can overcome the negative effects by including communications assuring consumers that the products are legitimately ethical, despite price discounts.