Ethical consumers are unattractive and boring arent they? | Oliver Burkeman

It’d be nice to think that making ethical choices inspired others to do the same

I’m on thin ice telling Guardian readers that being an ethical consumer makes you irritating, but you can’t argue with science. In a recent study, US researchers offered people various information before buying jeans, but said they could only know two of the following: price, style, colour, and whether child labour was involved. Those who chose not to learn about child labour were asked to assess the kind of person who would. Did they judge them to be more sexy, stylish or charismatic? No: they found them unattractive, boring and odd. Life – unlike the labour practices behind your ethical wardrobe – isn’t fair.

Still, it’s clear what’s happening here, and it ought to offer ethical types some solace. It’s called social comparison theory. The non-ethical shoppers knew they should care about child labour but didn’t want to think about it, so felt threatened by those who did. And no, it’s not that ethical shoppers are just insufferably smug and therefore annoying. Another part of the study confirmed the theory: when people were given the chance to make a donation to charity at no cost to themselves, they didn’t feel the need to put others down. “They’d had a chance to shore up their ethical identity,” researcher Rebecca Reczek told Harvard Business Review. “[So they] didn’t experience the same sense of threat.”

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