That’s Not How I Remember It: Willfully Ignorant Memory for Ethical Product Attribute Information

Abstract

This research documents a systematic bias in memory for ethical attribute information: consumers have better memory for an ethical attribute when a product performs well on the attribute versus when a product performs poorly on the attribute. Because consumers want to avoid emotionally difficult ethical information (e.g., child labor) but believe they should remember it in order to do the right thing, the presence of negative ethical information in a choice or evaluation produces conflict between the want and should selves. Consumers resolve this conflict by letting the want self prevail and forgetting or misremembering the negative ethical information. A series of studies establishes the willfully ignorant memory effect, shows that it holds only for ethical attributes and not for other attributes, and provides process evidence that it is driven by consumers allowing the want self to prevail in order to avoid negative feelings associated with the conflict. We also ameliorate the effect by reducing the amount of pressure exerted by the should self. Lastly, we demonstrate that consumers judge forgetting negative ethical information as more morally acceptable than remembering but ignoring it, suggesting that willfully ignorant memory is a more morally acceptable form of coping with want/should conflict.

The Impact of Proximity on Consumer Fair Trade Engagement and Purchasing Behavior: The Moderating Role of Empathic Concern and Hypocrisy

“…Although there are hints in the literature that hypocrisy could influence ethical consumption (Carrington et al 2016;Gamma et al 2018), our findings offer a new explanation for the relationship between proximity dimensions and consumer FT engagement. This is in line with the arguments of Reczek et al (2017), who found that people wilfully ignore information about ethical attributes to avoid emotionally difficult ethical information (e.g., child labor, exploited marginalized farmers) in purchase decisions, suggesting that wilfully ignorant memory is a more morally acceptable form of coping with 'want/should' conflict. In doing so, people stray from embedded beliefs and behavior to satisfy the want self's desire to feel good, even though they may be physically, socially or psychologically proximate to the marginalized producers/workers (Hassan et al 2016).…”

No evidence for unethical amnesia for imagined actions: A failed replication and extension

“…The mechanisms responsible for motivated forgetting may, under some circumstances, enable people to forget undesirable details of past actions (Anderson & Hanslmayr, 2014). And people tend to forget the unethical actions of third parties when they benefit from those actions (Bell, Schain, & Echterhoff, 2014;Reczek, Irwin, Zane, & Ehrich, 2017). It is possible, therefore, that our memory for some moral violations could tap into these self-serving biases and thus reduce the accuracy of recollections for certain details.…”

An Integrative Model to Predict Product Replacement Using Deep Learning on Longitudinal Data

“…As individuals in the sample recalled their enjoyment at the time of purchase as being reduced over time, their likelihood of upgrade increased. There might be motivated reasoning effects at play (Kunda, 1990;Reczek, Irwin, Zane, & Ehrich, 2018), causing individuals to misremember past enjoyment to justify the upgrading behavior, along the lines of those reported…”

“…Motivation comprises any wish, desire, or preference that concerns the outcome of a reasoning task (Kunda, 1990). One example of motivated reasoning is the willfully ignorant memory effect reported by Reczek, Irwin, Zane, and Ehrich (2018), whereby consumers present better memory for an ethical attribute when a product performs well on that attribute versus when a product performs poorly on that same attribute. Specifically, consumers systematically forget or misremember negative ethical attribute information when they face the conflict between their in the moment desire to avoid negative ethical information and their general long-term belief that they should be morally good.…”

“…This reduction might signal a decision that had already been made and that further search is not needed. It can also signal motivated reasoning processes (Kunda, 1990;Reczek et al, 2018) that might prevent consumers from learning more about their chosen product.…”