As consumers, we can brush up on our world geography simply by reading the tags in our clothing. Nicaragua, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mauritius, Vietnam, Morocco—there's a mini-United Nations in almost everyone's closet.

While it's easy enough to determine where our T-shirts and jeans come from, we don't always know the conditions under which they were made. In the working paper "Sweatshop Labor is Wrong Unless the Jeans are Cute: Motivated Moral Disengagement" [PDF], HBS doctoral student Neeru Paharia and Professor Rohit Deshpandé take a closer look at what happens when consumers are presented with the option of purchasing desirable items that have been made with sweatshop labor.

What their findings suggest: Our moral benchmarks are subject to change, particularly during an afternoon at the local mall.

"People have moral standards, but context matters," observes Deshpandé, who teaches the required MBA course Leadership and Corporate Accountability. "When we play with the context of desirability and price, there's a sudden change in standards."

In the first experiment, Paharia and Deshpandé divided 258 participants into groups; in one group, participants read, "Imagine that you are shopping and found the perfect pair of jeans. They look good on you and fit great. A large amount of sweatshop labor was used to produce these jeans." The scenario was the same for the second group, but participants were told that no sweatshop labor was used to make the jeans. Participants were then asked to answer the following questions, based on a scale of 1 to 7: How desirable are these jeans to you? How good do you think you'll look in these jeans? How likely would you be to purchase these jeans?

Next, participants responded to four statements, each of which draws on some of the common moral rationalizations used to justify sweatshop labor such as: "The use of sweatshop labor is OK because otherwise those workers would not have jobs"; "Without sweatshops, poorer countries couldn't develop"; "Buying clothes that are made with sweatshop labor is OK if it saves the consumer money because clothes are not affordable"; and "The use of sweatshop labor is OK because companies must remain competitive and all other companies do it." A control group did not read about the jeans scenario and only answered the four moral disengagement questions as a means of determining if the "no sweatshop labor" condition was prompting a reaction of moral righteousness. (The researchers assume a sweatshop to be a work environment with long hours, minimal pay, and difficult or even dangerous conditions; it may also include child labor.)

Paharia and Deshpandé found no significant difference in the index of moral disengagement between the control group and the "no sweatshop labor" group. But they did find levels of moral disengagement to be significantly higher in the sweatshop labor group when desirability for a product was high.

"Recent psychology research indicates that moral judgments can be influenced by emotions and other affective conditions," says Paharia. "We wanted to bring this phenomenon to the consumer domain to determine how consumers' desire for a product impacts their moral judgment."

The "Carrying Boy" in an Indiana
glass works, 1908, by
photographer Lewis Hine
(Photo courtesy
Baker Library Historical Collections)

Paharia and Deshpandé up the ante in a second experiment involving 253 participants and a hypothetical pair of Nike shoes. In this scenario, price, not appearance, is the driving desirability factor, with participants randomly assigned to one of four conditions: high desirability versus low desirability crossed with high sweatshop labor versus no sweatshop labor. For the high desirability condition, participants were told to imagine receiving a 75 percent discount on a $175 pair of shoes that they are extremely happy with. In the low desirability condition, they receive a 5 percent discount on the same shoes but are merely satisfied with the product.

Participants then answer a series of questions about the shoes' desirability similar to those used in the jeans experiment. This exercise is followed by information about Nike's labor practices; in the high sweatshop labor group, participants read, "Imagine that you've just read an article that suggests that Nike uses sweatshop labor to make its shoes"; the other group reads that Nike does not use sweatshop labor. Participants then answer a series of four moral disengagement questions similar to those used in the first experiment. Results showed that the moral disengagement index was significantly higher when both sweatshop labor was high and desirability was high.

"It's troubling that so much of our social and economic system is based on our moral judgment, especially if it's easy for us to justify our actions based on what we want," Paharia remarks. "If these rationalizations are pointed out to people, maybe they would gain a better sense of their source and consider if it's what they really believe or if they're being influenced by other motives."

Deshpandé wonders how a down economy will affect consumer sensitivity: "If I just lost my job, will I be more likely to morally disengage and buy the cheapest things I can find without really thinking about how they've been manufactured?" Given past consumer behavior, the answer would seem to be a resounding yes. Discount retailer Wal-Mart recently reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, despite the economic downturn, as shoppers continue their never-ending hunt for low prices.

And then there's the trickier issue of style, that certain something that makes an article of clothing a must-have for your closet. "We're all confronted with the same dilemma," says Paharia. "The jeans are cute, and you want them, but in the back of your mind you know it's quite possible that some harm came in making them."

"My initial thinking was that it's driven primarily by economics—if the price is right, you will disengage," adds Deshpandé. "It's the cuteness that's the troubling part; when it's not a matter of survival, when you haven't lost your job, and you disengage because something is cute … that's even more disturbing."

Paharia notes that successful companies such as American Apparel make a point of using non-sweatshop, U.S. labor. But they tend to be the exception to the rule. As recently as 2007, the BBC reported children from India working under "slave-like" conditions to produce clothing for a sub-contractor to the Gap. "Consumers, for the most part, don't punish companies for failing to monitor how their clothing is made," Paharia says. "Yet they have the power to demand products that meet whatever specifications they want."

The effects of consumer decisions and the cognitive disconnects that sometimes occur in making those decisions are a primary focus of Paharia's research. "A big chunk of marketing is around the issue of how we consume to express our identity," she says, noting that the diamond market was one of her original interests. "Diamonds have no intrinsic value, but they have such great symbolic and cultural value that demand has created environmental destruction and wars."

Paharia hopes her work will bring some attention to the power consumers have to create change. Things like moral disengagement get in the way of consumers demanding harm-free products.

"There has been a great deal of social activism directed at 'evil' companies and a lot of attention given to corporate social responsibility," she says. "Companies aren't necessarily designed to be moral or immoral; they're designed to make a profit. So why don't we take a closer look at how consumers make decisions and what that means for the world?"

作为一个消费者，我们只要关注自己每天穿着的服装的国名标签，就可以将地理知识温习个遍。尼加拉瓜，印度尼西亚，菲律宾，毛里求斯，越南，摩洛哥——我们的衣橱简直就是个袖珍的联合国。

不过，尽管找出我们那些T-恤外套的产地非常简单，但我们对它们产地的情况却往往一无所知。在工作底稿上这样写道：“廉价劳动力和血汗工厂是不道德的，但是如果衣服好看就无所谓了：我们需要道德的约束。”哈佛大学商学院的博士生尼路·帕哈利亚与罗伊特·德什潘达教授曾仔细观察过，当顾客们在面对众多可选择的商品，尤其是那些来自于低廉劳动力工厂出产的商品时所作出的反应。

最后，根据研究的结果，教授他们提议道：我们的道德标准尚需改进，尤其是当人们在当地的大商场中忘我地度过一个疯狂的购物午后的时候。

“人们都拥有自己的道德标准，但这也常常跟着环境而改变。”主攻管理学MBA及合作关系学的德什潘达教授评论道，“当我们受到周遭环境对于自身欲望及低价的诱惑时，那种所谓的道德标准就随之不见了。”

在最初的实验中，帕哈利亚和德什潘达将258名参与者分成了以下小组：在第一组中，他对参与者们念道：“想象一下，你正在购物，并且发现了一条很棒的牛仔裤。它看上去简直就像是为你而生的。而这条牛仔裤的背后却包含了无数廉价劳动力的血汗。”对于第二组参与者，教授也说了同样的话，只不过省去了关于血汗劳动力的部分。接下来参与者们就要回答如下问题，用1到7这几个数字来表示程度的高低：这条牛仔裤对你的吸引力有多大？你认为你穿起这条裤子来效果会有多好？你将有多大的可能性将会购买这条裤子？

接着，参与者们还要对以下四个观点作出评判，每个都是关于将血汗劳动力合理化的：“血汗工厂是可行的，因为如果不存在这样的工厂那些人们就会失业了”；“如果没有血汗工厂，贫穷国家就无法发展”；“购买这些地方出产的衣服是可行的，因为这些衣服的价格是可以承受的，消费者不用过量地花费”和“购买这些商品的可以的，因为商家之间都需要竞争，所有的公司都是一样的”。没有获知关于廉价劳动力的信息的那一组根据这四个道德观点，认为“取缔廉价劳动力工厂”是一种正义的举措。（研究人员假定廉价劳动力工厂就是一种工时长，低报酬，且工作十分艰难甚至危险的工作；这里自然也包括童工工厂）

在不知晓血汗工厂和坚持“取缔血汗工厂”的两组之间，帕哈利亚和德什潘达没有发现他们的道德标准产生什么太大的区别。但是他们发现，在不知道血汗工厂存在的那一组人中，对商品的渴望度令人瞩目地高。

“研究表明，愤怒的情绪在对道德标准的影响上要远远大于其他的情绪及情况。”帕哈利亚说，“我们打算将这种现象引导入消费者中间，以观察他们出于道德标准而对商品的渴望度的做出的变化。”

印第安纳玻璃工程的“标签男孩”

1908年，刘易斯·海因摄

 图片藏于贝克图书馆历史馆）

帕哈利亚和德什潘达又对253名参与者做了第二组实验，这一次的假设商品为一双耐克鞋。在这个假设的情况下，价格无疑是一大推进性因素。参与者自由加入四个小组：欲望度高组与欲望度低组，支持血汗工厂组与反对血汗工厂组。对于欲望度高的一组，他们则被告知这双鞋子令人惊喜地打了75%的折扣，只需要175美元一双。欲望度低的一组则是被告知了同样的商品只打了5%的折扣，但产品的舒适度是不变的。

然后，这些参与了相同实验的参与者们被询问了同样的一系列问题。这些问题都是与耐克的廉价劳动力生产工厂有关的。欲望度高的那一组的成员被告知：“设想一下，你正在看一篇关于建议增加耐克公司的廉价原产加工厂的文章”，而另一边的小组却被告知耐克将停止使用廉价劳动力工厂。紧接着参与者们又对那四个关于道德标准的问题做出了与之前第一个实验时一样的回答。结果表明，当得知廉价劳动力十分广泛，而对商品的渴望度同样也高时，人们的安逸心理比平时还要高。

“当我们的社会和经济体系建立在我们的道德标准上时，我们的观点会变得很浑浊的，尤其是当我们仅仅用自身的欲望来思考的时候。”帕哈利亚谈论道，“如果人们的这种心安理得被指出来的话，也许他们会更好地反思一下，他们所一直相信着的那些事物是否是他们应得的，或者说他们是否太容易受到周遭行为的影响。”

德什潘达对于低迷的经济是否会对消费者的意识产生影响十分怀疑：“是否我失业后，我对于购买那些我找到的一切便宜货就感到心安理得，而不管它们是被怎样生产出来的？”然而根据消费者们的表现，这个问题的回答令人无法忽视地肯定。折扣零售商沃尔玛关于第四季度的比期望值还要高的销售报告就表明，就算经济萧条，消费者们对于低价商品的需求也永远不会停息。

此处还有一个更狡猾的议点，也就是大力宣扬的所谓的衣橱里一定要备有的商品。“我们常常面对这样的进退维谷，”帕哈利亚说，“一条很漂亮的牛仔裤，令你非常想要拥有它，然而你却心知肚明制造它时曾经带来了多少的伤害。”

“我最初的想法只是很简单地来源于经济学——如果价格便宜，你自然会想要拥有，”德什潘达补充说明，“这就是这种犹豫情绪的诱惑之处；当我们不需要担上救赎心理的时候，当你还没有加入失业人群的时候，你对于拥有一些你想要的东西就会变得自然而然……这简直更叫人烦恼。”

 帕哈利亚也观察了成功的企业如美国服装公司所做的无血汗工厂生产的方式。不过他们更倾向于将自己制造为一个行业中的例外。近期在2007年的时候，BBC就对印度的童工为分包商的工厂进行服装加工的“奴隶般的”的生活进行了揭露和报道。“大多数的顾客不会去向经销公司对服装上的瑕疵进行反应和索赔”，帕哈利亚说，“哪怕他们拥有完全的权利去索要关于他们所购买的商品的说明。”

消费者对于商品的决定与认知能力及影响感官认知的因素就是帕哈利亚研究的重点。“市场的很大一部分是取决与我们中大部分人所共同需求的商品的，”她说，钻石市场就不是她所关心的市场之一，“钻石的价值是固定不变的，此外在战争造成的大规模破坏后它们还将拥有更大的文化价值与象征性。”

帕哈利亚希望她所进行着的研究工作能使消费群体注意到他们需要进行的改变。种种的约束，如道义标准等等制约了消费者们对无公害产品进行选择。

“现在社会上存在着很多针对‘邪恶的’企业的激进思想及对于合并企业的虎视眈眈，”她说，“企业的产生不需依照其是否道德的标准；他们设立的目的仅仅是盈利而已。所以我们没什么不更接近一点消费者，去看看是什么决定了他们购物是选择，以及这么做对这个社会所能产生的影响呢？”