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.

The objective of this study is to examine the effects of consumer beliefs regarding three food certifications on their behavioral intention and the behavioral intention biases to purchase (purchasing intention biases) certified agricultural products as predicted by a subjective probability model. The food certifications used for this study are ‘Organic food’, ‘Traceability system of food products,’ and ‘Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP)’. Tofu (bean curd) was selected as being representative of agricultural food products, for the purposes of this study. In 2016, we surveyed 243 consumers regarding the strength of their belief regarding their prior beliefs relative to each certification, as well as the strength of their intention to purchase certified tofu based on their belief strengths for this study. The study resulted in the following findings: Firstly, consumers hold more than two different prior beliefs for each of the three certifications included in this study. Consumers’ prior beliefs regarding these certifications have an impact on their consideration as to whether they plan to buy those certified agricultural products. Secondly, consumers try to persuade themselves to ensure that their particular belief about the product’s certification could lead to a purchasing decision regarding that agricultural product