Green consumption does not make people cheat: Three attempts to replicate moral licensing effect due to pro-environmental behavior

Abstract A recent study (Mazar & Zhong, 2010) argued that green consumption triggers cross-domain moral licensing, which makes people engage in dishonest behavior. In two conceptual and one close replication of this study (total N  = 1,274), we manipulated participants’ level of green consumption. Three different validated tasks, which allowed participants to cheat for monetary profit, were used to measure dishonesty in the three experiments. We found no licensing effect of green consumption on subsequent dishonesty. Thus, policies which make people engage in pro-environmental behavior are less likely to trigger cross-domain licensing than previously thought.