The United States is one of the most charitable nations, yet comprises some of the most materialistic citizens in the world. Interestingly, little is known about how the consumer trait of materialism, as well as the opposing moral trait of gratitude, influences charitable giving. We address this gap in the literature by theorizing and empirically testing that the effects of these consumer traits on charitable behavior can be explained by diverse motivations. We discuss the theoretical implications, along with implications for (...) charitable organizations, and offer suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 2, Page 546-561, April 2022.

As the issue of marketing's social responsibility grows in significance, the topic of materialism surfaces. While many marketing efforts encourage materialism, the materialism that is encouraged may have negative societal effects. An understanding of the effects of materialism on individuals, families, society, etc., is important in evaluating whether or not it is socially irresponsible for marketers to encourage materialism. However, the adequate empirical work has not yet been done on the overall effects of materialism. The current paper asks and addresses (...) one important empirical question in this area. Do consumers who are more materialistic have different ethical standards than those who are not? Empirical evidence is presented which would indicate that materialism is negatively correlated with people's higher ethical standards as consumers. The implications for this in understanding social responsibility are discussed. (shrink)

Within the past few years, managed care health insurance programs have become commonplace. With managed care programs, however, physicians are facing increasing ethical pressures. This paper examines the relationship between physicians'' behavior intentions with respect to four managed care ethical scenarios and their responses to Forsyth''s (1980) Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ). This is one of the first papers to compare this scale to behavioral intentions in the workplace. We provide a literature review of the ethical dilemmas that doctors face under (...) a managed care system and conduct a national random sample of general practitioners and surgeons regarding the four managed care ethical dilemmas. The results show that the doctors surveyed are significantly more idealistic than relativistic. In relating the EPQ to the ethical scenarios, however, there was no support for the proposition that ethical ideology was related to the ethical behavioral intentions. This suggests more research is needed to establish the links between ethical positions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Finally, there were little differences in EPQ scores by practice or demographic variables, the only significant result being that general surgeons are significantly more idealistic than family practitioners. (shrink)

This paper considers the level of ethics for insurance professionals for professional situations (measured with three insurance scenarios) compared to personal (consumer) situations (measured by Muncy and Vitell's 1992 Consumer Ethics Scale). The results of the study illustrate that there are significant differences in the ethical behavior of insurance professionals in professional versus personal situations. The authors found that insurance professionals are more likely to actively engage in unethical behavior in order to benefit professionally than in a personal setting. In (...) general, however, the average respondent was unlikely or extremely unlikely to engage in unethical conduct. The managerial implications and need for future research in this area are discussed. (shrink)