Understanding why individuals behave unethically is an important topic for both theory and practice, especially in the current environment where people experience much more stressful events. The current research aims to examine the relationship between peoples’ experienced stress and their attitude towards unethical consumption behavior, as well as the underlying mechanism. Empirical findings from a survey of 451 participants suggest perceived stress serves as an important indicator of people’s tolerance of unethical activities, and that this relationship is mediated by chronic construal level and materialism value. Specifically, stressed individuals tend to develop low-construal mindsets and more materialism values, both of which further increase their tolerance of ethically questionable behaviors. The present research highlights the importance of stress on consumer ethics and contributes to prior literature in three ways. Firstly, the current study adds to the literature on consumer ethics by examining a new predictor of consumers’ ethical beliefs, which enriches the understanding of why some consumers act more ethically than others do. Secondly, to the best of our knowledge, little prior literature has examined the effect stress on ethical beliefs. The current research for the first time examines the effect and the mechanism and reveals the mediating roles of construal level and materialism value. Thirdly, the present research finds that stress increases low-level construal, leading to unethical beliefs. This finding broadens the scope in construal level theory by suggesting that chronic construal level predicts individual ethical judgments.

• Yuanyuan Liu(Xi'an Jiaotong University, China)
• Yeyi Liu(University of Leeds, UK)
• Xi Zhao(Xi'an Jiaotong University, China)