Couple Ethical Purchase Behavior and Joint Decision Making: Understanding the Interaction Process and the Dynamics of Influence

Abstract

We present in this paper a qualitative study of couple ethical purchasing behavior, based on interviews with French consumers. The analysis of joint decision making allows us to distinguish between ethical couples who favor the choice of ethical products when making purchase decisions together and unethical couples who do not. Our results show that ethical couples are characterized by a positive exchange of information, use of verbal and tactical persuasion strategies, and trust in the knowledge of the partner, while unethical couples are characterized by a negative exchange of information, difficulties with joint decision making, and conflict-minimizing strategy. Time, money, and pleasure appear as the most critical factors restricting couples’ purchase of ethical products. Our research provides the first empirical evidence about the dynamics of influence of one partner over the other within couples regarding ethical purchasing behavior.