Morality and Ethics: a Review of Psychology and Marketing Literatures

This book provides a review of the psychological and marketing literature on the topics of ethics and morality. The review begins by providing a foundation for the research in psychology and marketing by discussing the works of early thinkers such as, Plato, Socrates, Kant, Mill and Hume. In the psychology literature, a review of the early work conducted by Piaget and Kohlberg, as well as research provided by social scientists in the late 20th century (e.g. Forsyth and Haidt) illustrates that moral action has been viewed either as the result of deliberate moral reasoning, or as the immediate result of automatic action tendencies, both of which may be mediated by the moral definitions and beliefs embedded in an actor?s social environment. Finally, a review of marketing literature reveals that a number of useful models have been developed and numerous individual differences and environmental factors have been identified which influence ethical behavior and decision-making, but theory-guided research is still needed in the area of marketing ethics - - it should be noted, however, that the last few years have seen an explosion of this kind of research.