Examining the effects of moral development level, self-concept, and self-monitoring on consumers’ ethical attitudes

Abstract

This study investigates the possible effects of self-concept, self-monitoring, and moral development level on dimensions of consumers’ ethical attitudes. ‘‘Actively benefiting from illegal activities,’’ ‘‘actively benefiting from deceptive practices,’’ and ‘‘no harm/no foul 1–2’’ are defined by factor analysis as four dimensions of Turkish consumers’ ethical attitudes. Logistic regression analysis is applied to data collected from 516 Turkish households. Results indicate that self-monitoring and moral development level predicted consumer ethics in relation to ‘‘actively benefiting from questionable practices’’ and ‘‘no harm/no foul’’ dimensions. Actual selfconcept is also a predictor variable in relation to ‘‘no harm/ no foul’’ dimension. Age and gender make significant differences in consumers’ ethical attribute dimensions.