Download data and study materials from OSF
Principal investigator:
Hajin Kim
University of Chicago
Email: hajin@uchicago.edu
Homepage: https://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/kim
Sample size: 2040
Field period: 05/27/2023-10/26/2023
Participants read that a newly discovered pollutant, malzene, causes asthma and chest pain and can hurt plant growth. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of four regulatory conditions:
1. A no-regulation control;
2. A command-and-control mandate limiting allowable malzene pollution;
3. A malzene tax; or
4. A malzene cap-and-trade system.
The manipulation text explaining each regulatory system was based on major newspaper descriptions of these regulatory types. To give the anti-commodification the best shot at finding a change in moral stigma, the manipulation highlighted market and price language in the market-based conditions.
Three DVs for all four conditions:
1. Moral stigma of malzene pollution (composite of 3 measures))
2. Perceived harm of malzene
3. Behavioral intentions to, e.g., sign a petition for stronger malzene regulation
Two DVs for the non-control conditions only:
1. Compliance morality: Moral stigma of polluting in compliance with the regulation
2. Violation morality: Moral stigma of polluting in violation of the regulation
First, participants in the market-based conditions (the tax and cap-and-trade conditions) did not find malzene pollution less morally bad or harmful than those who learned that regulators had enacted a command-and-control mandate, nor did the market-based regulations change their overall behavioral intentions to, e.g., demand more regulation or curb their own malzene-emitting activities.
Second, on compliance morality, market-based instruments made pollution seem morally worse (a fictitious company polluting in compliance with a tax or cap-and-trade seemed morally bad, while a fictitious company polluting in compliance with the mandate looked morally good). Likewise, on violation morality, market-based instruments made pollution seem morally worse, but with less meaningful differences (companies looked morally bad in all conditions for violating their regulation, but morally worse in the market-based conditions).
Finally, exploratory mediation analyses suggested that the competing effects discussed above might be driving the overall null effects on moral stigma.