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Responses to Ethical Scenarios: The Impact of Trade-Off Salience on Competing Construal Level Effects

Author

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  • Nelson Borges Amaral

    (Ontario Tech University)

  • Jinfeng Jiao

    (Binghamton University)

Abstract

This research investigates the importance of trade-off salience in understanding how variations in consumers’ construal levels can influence moral judgments. Across five experiments, trade-offs are implied and explicitly made salient, and construal levels are manipulated by altering temporal distance and perceptual fluency, and by using a well-established cognitive method. Consistent with prior research, we demonstrate that higher construal levels can reduce anticipated unethical behavior, when trade-offs are not salient, by making higher-level moral values more prominent. When trade-offs are salient, however, we reveal that unethical behavior is increased when construal levels are elevated by making desirability-related thoughts relatively more prominent, compared to feasibility-related thoughts. Tests of mediation provide support for the role of desirability- and feasibility-related thoughts. Together, our results provide insight into the opposing predictions made by construal level theory for ethical decision making by revealing how trade-off salience, often inherent in ethical dilemmas, systematically influences the effects of construal level on ethical decision making.

Suggested Citation

  • Nelson Borges Amaral & Jinfeng Jiao, 2023. "Responses to Ethical Scenarios: The Impact of Trade-Off Salience on Competing Construal Level Effects," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(3), pages 745-762, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:183:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-021-04995-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04995-x
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