Laugh at People Who Won't Buy Jeans Made by Child Labor? You May Be Uglier Than You Think
Admit it. You feel a little superior to the people who give shares of Heifer International to to their kids at Christmas (that's where you buy an animal -- or part of it -- to give to a needy family around the world to end poverty). You laugh at your sister who reuses her silver foil. And you think buying fair trade coffee is well, for jerks. At least, I do. Now a new study says that, while we're certainly against child labor, or anything that harms the environment, we also don’t want to work too hard to find out whether our favorite products were made ethically. And we really don’t like those good people who make the effort to seek out ethically made goods when we choose not to. In fact, we denigrate consumers who act more ethically than we do, seeing them as less fashionable and more boring. Worst of all, seeing others act ethically when we don’t undermines our commitment to pro-social values. “It is this vicious cycle,” says Rebecca Walker Reczek, co-aut...