Mean Greens and werewolves

Note: my weekend op-ed.

I’ve just read an interesting study about how buying green makes people mean.

Two PhDs at the University of Toronto; Chen-Bo Zhong, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, and Nina Mazar, Assistant Professor of Marketing, asked the question, ‘Do Green Products Make Us Better People?’ now in press at the journal Psychological Science.

The answer, according to the article’s abstract is, probably not.

“In line with the halo associated with green consumerism, people act more altruistically after mere exposure to green than conventional products. However, people act less altruistically and are more likely to cheat and steal after purchasing green products as opposed to conventional products.”

In layperson language, good examples encourage good behavior, but good behavior can justify bad behavior later.

The researchers set up three experiments with a total of 305 students at the University of Toronto. Subjects were tested to see if buying green products creates enough “moral credentials” to encourage them to lie and steal for their own advantage.

The results were clear, and depressing. It does.

The study attributes this to what the authors call, “the licensing effect,” whereby “virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviors.”

In other words, I’ve been really good so now I get to be bad.

This is interesting because it offers insight into a lot of behavior way outside the scope of the experiment.

Did you ever wonder how pedophile priests justify their betrayal of their oaths, their parishioners, and their duty to God? “Climate change activists” who travel about in chartered jets and chauffeured limos, leaving carbon footprints the size of a small town? Idealistic politicians who get on the gravy train to enrich themselves after just a short time in office? Animal rights activists who treat mere people like dirt?

Explanations offered for this include: they’re hypocrites, they’re phonies enlisting in a cause they don’t really believe in but find more profitable than working for a living, or they’re degenerates infiltrating a respected institution to gain access to innocent victims.

It could be all of these, but maybe it’s also something else. Maybe it’s the licensing effect.

As I read the study, I started to get the feeling I’ve seen this movie before. Literally.

Silver Bullet is a 1985 movie based on Stephen King’s novella, ‘Cycle of the Werewolf,’ starring the late Corey Haim, Gary Busey, and Everett McGill.

The story is, a crippled boy Marty Coslaw (Heim) believes a werewolf is behind a series of grisly murders in a small New England town. The boy sets out to discover which of the townspeople is the werewolf.

It turns out, it’s the town’s pastor Reverend Lowe (McGill.)

Before Marty and his Uncle Red (Busey) manage to kill the werewolf with a silver bullet, the boy confronts Reverend Lowe.

The Reverend is aware he’s a werewolf. But, he tells Marty, surely all the good I do when I’m not a werewolf justifies ripping a few people to bloody shreds once a month?

I mean hey, nobody’s perfect.

The medieval church used to have a practice called “selling indulgences,” offering absolution for certain sins for money. The revulsion caused by this practice eventually became one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation.

So now that feel-good causes have largely replaced religion in people’s hearts, is this what we’re doing? Buying indulgences?