48 The Urge to Splurge fit messages than by other-benefit messages, as, by definition, self-benefit messages are more focused on “the self.” A less prominent form of justification in the consumer and advertising field is “moral justification.” In psychology, moral justification is defined as the representation of an unethical deed as in the service of moral purposes (Bandura, 1999; Barsky, 2011). Correspondingly, in this study, moral justification refers to the use of moral or pro-social reasons to justify one’s impulse purchases. Moral justification can be perceived as a mechanism to disengage ones (unethical) actions from moral standards (moral disengagement, see Bandura, 1999). Sharma and Paço (2021) show that consumers can use moral disengagement to justify non-sustainable choices. However, in this research we will study if sustainability claims can be used to morally justify self-indulgent behavior. Moral justification can be viewed as an appeal to higher loyalties (Ashforth & Anand, 2003; Niven & Healy, 2016), as the greater good is used as an excuse for one’s own behavior. As moral justification is rarely investigated within the marketing or consumer behavioral field, we will provide an example of moral justification from the social psychology literature. Hunt and Manning (1991) show that police officers, who strongly believe that a defendant is guilty, may lie in court to convince a judge to convict, and use “justice” as a moral justification for lying. In this example, the greater good is used to justify one’s sinful behavior. We argue that people can also use the greater good, such as the cause that a sustainability-driven company stands for, to justify impulsive hedonic purchases. Hence, moral justifications for impulse buying are presumably more often elicited by other-benefit messages than self-benefit messages. Self-benefit versus other-benefit advertising frames for sustainability-driven companies So far, we have established that sustainability-driven companies can choose between (at least) two types of advertising frames. They can try to persuade consumers to buy their products through self-benefit advertising frames, which arguably enhances deservingness justification, or through other-benefit advertising frames, which arguably enhances moral justification. Both advertising frames potentially reduce internal goal conflict and feelings of cognitive or ethical dissonance that people can experience when they feel a sudden desire to buy a hedonic product (also see Kubany et al., 1996; Kim et al., 2021). Consequently, both frames can enhance immediate purchase behavior. However, we argue that other-benefit advertising frames, for sustainability-driven companies selling hedonic products, are more successful in attenuating consumers’ internal vice/virtue response conflict than self-benefit advertising frames, resulting in a stronger effect on impulse purchase behavior of other-benefit frames. A self-benefit advertisement appeals only to the vice choice and, thus, does not address any possible positive long-term consequences of one’s behavior (virtues). However, the other-benefit advertisement answers to both the vice and virtue options. It communicates the reasons why self-indulging (which is a vice option by definition, Londoño & Ruiz de Maya, 2022) is morally justified. By choosing the vice option that is promoted through an other-benefit frame, the consumer can achieve immediate gratification by buying on impulse (vice)
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