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� 2014 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc. ● Vol. 41 ● October 2014All rights reserved. 0093-5301/2014/4103-0016$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/677841

When Going Green Backfires: How FirmIntentions Shape the Evaluation of SociallyBeneficial Product Enhancements

GEORGE E. NEWMANMARGARITA GORLINRAVI DHAR

Many companies offer products with social benefits that are orthogonal to perfor-mance (e.g., green products). The present studies demonstrate that informationabout a company’s intentions in designing the product plays an import role inconsumers’ evaluations. In particular, consumers are less likely to purchase a greenproduct when they perceive that the company intentionally made the product betterfor the environment compared to when the same environmental benefit occurredas an unintended side effect. This result is explained by consumers’ lay theoriesabout resource allocation: intended (vs. unintended) green enhancements leadconsumers to assume that the company diverted resources away from productquality, which in turn drives a reduction in purchase interest. The present studiesalso identify an important boundary condition based on the type of enhancementand show that the basic intended (vs. unintended) effect generalizes to other typesof perceived tradeoffs, such as healthfulness and taste.

One of the most common ways for a company to in-crease the desirability of a product is through the ad-

dition of new product features. Typically, such product en-hancements are performance related (e.g., faster processor,better camera resolution). Increasingly, however, many com-panies offer socially beneficial product enhancements thatare orthogonal to the product’s performance, such as benefitsto the environment or benefits to the workers who producedit (e.g., fair trade). While previous research has examined

George E. Newman is assistant professor of organizational behavior atthe Yale School of Management, 165 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT 06520([email protected]). Margarita Gorlin is a PhD candidate at theYale School of Management, 165 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT 06520([email protected]). Ravi Dhar is the George Rogers Clark Pro-fessor of Management and Marketing at the Yale School of Management,165 Whitney Ave, New Haven, CT 06520 ([email protected]). Pleaseaddress correspondence to George Newman. The authors would like tothank Jennifer Savary for her helpful comments on an earlier draft. Theywould also like to thank Jon Cummings and Holly Hegener, the F. K.Weyerhaeuser Memorial Fund, the Yale Center for Business and the En-vironment, and Sears Canada for their financial support of the research.

Ann McGill served as editor and Darren W. Dahl served as associateeditor for this article.

Electronically published August 15, 2014

how performance-related enhancements are evaluated (Mu-kherjee and Hoyer 2001; Nowlis and Simonson 1996;Thompson, Hamilton, and Rust 2005), less is known abouthow these other types of nonperformance, socially beneficialenhancements are evaluated.

The present studies focus on green product enhancementsand, specifically, how the communication of environmentalbenefits as intended or unintended affects consumers’ pur-chase decisions. Imagine, for example, a firm that has de-veloped a new product that is better for the environment.One option is to communicate that the green benefit wasintended: the firm may highlight that it is concerned aboutthe sustainability of its products and as a result, it developeda new product that is better for the environment. Alterna-tively, however, the firm may communicate that the greenbenefit was actually an unintended side effect; it may ad-vertise that it was trying to develop a new product thatsatisfied some other goal and that the environmental benefitwas merely a by-product of those efforts.

There are a number of real-world cases that reflect thesedifferent communication strategies. For example, Method,a certified B corporation that manufactures household clean-ing and personal care products, advertises that “we keep theplanet in mind with every bottle we design.” Or, when BMWlaunched the “Efficient Dynamics” campaign for more en-vironmentally sustainable automobiles, the company stated

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824 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

that their goal was “to increase both efficiency and perfor-mance at once.” Conversely, when Anheuser Busch releasedthe new aluminum bottles for their top-selling beers in 2005,the campaign highlighted how the new bottle looked dif-ferent from others in the marketplace and considerablydownplayed the significant environmental benefit of usingaluminum. Similarly, when Apple Computers rolled out de-signs for its new unibody laptops, the company highlightedthat its innovative use of aluminum was central to the im-proved performance and durability of the laptops and thatthe green benefits of using aluminum were a by-product ofthose efforts.

All else being equal, it would seem that intending to makea product better should be preferred to unintentionally doingso. However, the present studies demonstrate the oppositeeffect. Here we show that when a company manufactures aproduct that is better for the environment, consumers areless likely to purchase it if the green benefit is perceived asintended than when the same environmental benefit is per-ceived as an unintended side effect. Thus, we demonstratea counterintuitive effect of intended product enhancements,such that intending to improve a product may actually leadto a decrease in consumer interest.

We show that this effect results from consumers’ lay the-ories about the relationship between a firm’s intentions andits allocation of resources. Specifically, when a companyintends to make a product better for the environment, con-sumers assume that in order to make a product more en-vironmentally friendly, the company diverted resourcesaway from product quality. In other words, intended (vs.unintended) enhancements lead consumers to infer that thecompany devoted greater resources to the green benefit andinvested fewer resources in quality. In turn, this reductionin perceived quality drives a reduction in purchase interest.

The present studies demonstrate the link between thesefactors (i.e., firm intentions, lay theories of resource allo-cation, perceptions of product quality, and purchase intent)while also ruling out several alternative explanations for thiseffect (e.g., signaling that the firm cares less about quality).Additionally, we identify an important boundary conditionof this effect and also show that the basic intended (vs.unintended) effect generalizes to other types of perceivedtrade-offs, such as the relationship between the healthfulnessof a product and its taste.

This work highlights the centrality of firm intentions toconsumer perceptions—while beliefs about intentionalityare central to many aspects of psychology, to date, little isknown about how intentions influence consumers’ purchasedecisions. Moreover, given that the “greening” of productsis a fast-growing industry, our results may hold importantpractical implications for devising communication strategiesabout the introduction of green products to the marketplace.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDReasoning about Intentions

A large literature within psychology and experimentalphilosophy has examined how lay theories about intention-

ality inform people’s judgments. For example, a well-es-tablished finding in the moral psychology literature is thatintended harms are rated as less moral than equivalent un-intended harms (Cushman and Mele 2008; Pizarro, Uhlmannand Salovey 2003; Young et al. 2006). People may also usethe moral valence of an action to make determinations aboutintentionality. For example, Knobe and his colleagues (Knobe2003a, 2003b; Leslie, Knobe, and Cohen 2006) demonstratedthat people’s intuitions regarding whether a behavior wasperformed intentionally are influenced by their beliefs aboutwhether the behavior itself is right or wrong.

While past research has explored how intentionalityshapes morally relevant judgments, less research has ex-amined the role of firm intentions in consumer decisionmaking. One natural area to examine this question is in thedomain of environmentally beneficial (or “green”) products.In the past few decades, consumers have become increas-ingly concerned about the moral responsibility to preservethe environment for future generations (Caruana 2007; Irwinand Baron 2001). In turn, this increased concern has led toremarkable growth in the market for environmentally friendlyproducts (e.g., Hunt and Dorfman 2009).

Here we test the prediction that information about a firm’sintentions may affect evaluations of green products in apotentially counterintuitive manner. Namely, we hypothe-size that green products may actually be evaluated worse ifa firm communicates that the green benefit was intendedthan when it communicates that the same environmentalbenefit occurred as an unintended side effect. This predictiondraws from both the existing literature on intentionality aswell as from research on how consumers evaluate trade-offsamong product attributes.

Intentions, Resource Allocation, and Zero-Sum

Past research on intentionality suggests an important linkbetween intentions and perceived effort (Heider 1958). Forexample, if we cannot observe a person’s actions, knowl-edge about intentions can inform our beliefs about the extentto which the person was responsible for a particular outcome(Lombrozo 2010) and his or her degree of motivation (Dikand Aarts 2007; Kruger et al. 2004). And within consumerbehavior, consumers may associate perceived effort with themotivations of the firm (Morales 2005).

Applied to the present research, we hypothesize that whena company is described as intentionally making a productbetter for the environment, consumers will infer that thefirm devoted greater resources toward “greening the prod-uct,” compared with when the same outcome was achievedunintentionally (e.g., when the green benefit occurred as aby-product of some other effort). Therefore, we propose thatintentionality in this case is naturally interpreted as makingreference to the firm’s allocation of resources.

This inference about resource allocation is important be-cause past research on the zero-sum heuristic (Chernev2007; Chernev and Carpenter 2001) suggests that consumershave a lay theory that firm resources are zero-sum—in otherwords, that superiority on one product dimension is com-



NEWMAN, GORLIN, AND DHAR 825

pensated by inferiority on other dimensions (Chernev 2007;Chernev and Carpenter 2001). For example, a toothpastethat specializes in its cavity-fighting ability may be inferredto be inferior on tartar control (Chernev 2007). In the domainof green products, this suggests that consumers may inferthat devoting more resources to the green enhancement nec-essarily implies that the firm invested fewer resources inother quality dimensions.

Note that, in actuality, a company could intend to enhancea particular dimension (e.g., a product’s environmental ben-efits) without necessarily sacrificing quality on other di-mensions or changing the product’s performance along otherattributes. Therefore, we suggest that inferences about qual-ity in this context are drawing from consumers’ lay theoriesrather than from their actual knowledge about the particularproduct category.

Because inferences about product quality are importantlyrelated to purchase intentions, we predict that these infer-ences about firm resources will have downstream conse-quences for purchase intent, such that consumers will beless likely to purchase products with intended green en-hancements than products with unintended green enhance-ments. This is perhaps the most novel and counterintuitiveprediction, since (a) past research on compensatory infer-ences has tended to look at perceptions of quality but notat the subsequent effects on purchase decisions, and (b) weare proposing that intending to enhance a product (i.e., makeit more appealing) may actually make consumers less likelyto purchase it. This prediction about purchase intent is po-tentially quite relevant to practitioners when consideringthat, from the perspective of corporate social responsibility,if a company wants to be seen as helping the environmentthen it is critical that its actions be seen as intentional (Brownand Dacin 1997; Creyer 1997; Sen and Bhattacharya 2001).

In sum, combining the literatures on intentionality andthe zero-sum heuristic, we suggest that consumers shouldbe less likely to purchase products with intended green en-hancements than products with unintended green enhance-ments and that this effect should be mediated by consumers’inferences about how the company allocated its resources.Stated formally, this proposal makes the following threepredictions:

H1: Consumers will infer that the firm diverted moreresources away from product quality when thegreen enhancement is intended (vs. unintended).

H2: Consumers will infer lower product quality whenthe green enhancement is intended (vs. unin-tended).

H3: Consumers will be less likely to purchase theproduct when the green enhancement is intended(vs. unintended).

OVERVIEW OF STUDIESTo test these hypotheses, we conducted a series of four

experiments. Experiment 1 provides support for the three

central hypotheses regarding resource allocation (hypothesis1), quality inferences (hypothesis 2), and purchase intent(hypothesis 3). In addition, this study tests the hypothesizedmediation model that intended (vs. unintended) green en-hancements lead people to infer that the firm diverted moreresources away from quality, which in turn leads to de-creased quality ratings and, ultimately, lower purchase in-tent. To assess what consumers infer in the absence of in-formation about intentions, this study also included a controlcondition in which no information about intentions was pro-vided.

Experiments 2a and 2b lend further support to the pro-posed mechanism by replicating the impact of firm inten-tions on perceptions of resource allocation, quality, and pur-chase intent and by replicating the hypothesized mediationmodel. These studies also addressed two alternative expla-nations for the effect, which were related to the possibilitythat the intended (vs. unintended) framings signaled some-thing about the firm’s specialization or lack of focus onquality. (We discuss these alternatives in further detail alongwith each of the studies.)

Experiment 3 tested an important boundary condition.Previous research has identified a positive halo effect stem-ming from socially beneficial product attributes (Blair andChernev 2014; Schuldt, Muller, and Schwarz 2012). Ourtheory about resource allocation and zero-sum predicts thatone key moderator of the effect of intended (vs. unintended)enhancements on purchase intent is whether the social ben-efit is inherent to the product. This study shows that theproposed negative effect of intended (vs. unintended) en-hancements holds only if the enhancement is inherent to theproduct. When the benefit is separate from the product (e.g.,fair trade), consumers should no longer infer that the com-pany diverted resources away from product quality andtherefore should evaluate the product more favorably whenthe benefit is intended (vs. unintended).

Finally, experiment 4 tests the generality of the intended(vs. unintended) effect. This study builds on previous re-search which has identified a tasty p unhealthy lay theoryregarding food products (Raghunathan, Naylor, and Hoyer2006) and tests whether intentionally healthier products arerated as less tasty than products that are healthier as theresult of an unintended side effect.

EXPERIMENT 1: INTENDED VERSUSUNINTENDED ENHANCEMENTS

The first study tested our central hypothesis that consum-ers are less likely to purchase a green product when theenvironmental benefit is intended versus unintended. In ad-dition, we hypothesized that inferences about resource al-location should explain this difference. Thus, we predicteda specific serial mediation model whereby information thata green enhancement was intended (vs. unintended) shouldlead participants to infer that the firm diverted more re-sources away from product quality. In turn, this belief aboutresource allocation should lead to lower quality ratings and




FIGURE 1

MEAN RATINGS OF PURCHASE INTENT, PRODUCT QUALITY,AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION (EXPERIMENT 1)

ultimately, lower purchase intent (i.e., intentions r resourcesr quality r purchase intent).

To examine what consumers infer in the absence of in-formation about firm intentions, this study included a controlcondition in which no information about intentions was pro-vided. Consistent with previous research demonstrating thatthe default is for consumers to assume that any productenhancement was described was intended (Chernev 2007),we predicted that the control condition should follow thesame pattern as the condition in which the firm intentionallyenhanced the product.

Method

Three hundred three adult participants were recruited fromAmazon’s Mechanical Turk (Mage p 33.1, 52.5% female)and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions:intended green enhancement, unintended green enhance-ment, or control. All participants read short descriptions oftwo new environmentally friendly products (a dish soap anda drain cleaner), which were presented sequentially on dif-ferent pages. In both cases, the products were described as“significantly better for the environment than competingbrands.” In the intended condition, participants read that “asinitially intended, this new dishwashing soap [drain cleaner]is significantly better for the environment than competingbrands,” while in the unintended condition, participants readthat the green improvement occurred “as an unintended sideeffect.” In the control condition, there was no mention ofthe firm’s intentions (see app. A for all materials used inthis study).

For each product, all participants then answered a seriesof questions that assessed their perceptions of product qual-ity, resource allocation, and purchase intent. Specifically, foreach product, participants responded to two items assessingproduct quality along nongreen dimensions (e.g., Howwould you rate the cleaning efficacy of this new dishwashing

soap? How would you rate the ability of this new dish-washing soap to remove grease? 1 p low, 5 p average, 9p high). Participants also evaluated the company’s per-ceived use of resources through their agreement with thestatement “In order to make the dishwashing soap [draincleaner] better for the environment, the company took re-sources away from making this product better in quality”(1 p not at all, 9 p very much so). Finally, participantsindicated their purchase intent on a 9-point scale (1 p def-initely would not buy, 9 p definitely would buy).

Results

Purchase Intent. Results from this study are depicted infigure 1. A one-way ANOVA revealed a significant effectof firm intentions on ratings of purchase intent for both thedish soap, F(2, 300) p 4.74, p p .009 and the drain cleaner,F(2, 300) p 2.98, p p .052. Consistent with our predictions,a planned contrast confirmed that participants expressedhigher purchase intent in the unintended condition than theintended and control conditions for both the dish soap (Munint

p 5.65, SD p 2.11 versus Mint p 4.77, SD p 1.95 andMcon p 5.12, SD p 2.11; t(300) p 2.83, p p .005) andthe drain cleaner (Munint p 5.39, SD p 2.20 versus Mint p4.74, SD p 2.09 and Mcon p 4.79, SD p 2.11; t(300) p2.44, p p .015).

Resource Allocation. As predicted, differences in inten-tionality also had an effect on inferences about the firm’sallocation of resources. A one-way ANOVA revealed a sig-nificant effect of firm intentions on inferences about resourceallocation for both the dish soap, F(2, 300) p 7.55, p p.001, and the drain cleaner, F(2, 300) p 7.52, p p .001.A planned contrast confirmed that participants thought thatthe company had diverted more resources away from prod-uct quality in both the intended and control conditions thanin the unintended condition for both the dish soap (Munint p




3.91, SD p 2.36 versus Mint p 5.05, SD p 1.99 and Mcon

p 4.68, SD p 2.02; t(300) p 3.68, p ! .001) and the draincleaner (Munint p 4.19, SD p 2.52 versus Mint p 5.36, SDp 2.01 and Mcon p 4.99, SD p 2.05; t(300) p 3.69, p !

.001).

Product Quality. The two items related to product qual-ity were highly correlated for both of the products (r p

for dish soap and for drain cleaner) and were.79 r p .78averaged to produce one measure of quality for each product.A one-way ANOVA revealed a significant effect of firmintentions on ratings of product quality for both the dishsoap, F(2, 300) p 3.85, p p .022, and the drain cleaner,F(2, 300) p 4.41, p p .013. In addition, a planned contrastconfirmed that product quality ratings were higher in theunintended condition than the intended and control condi-tions for both the dish soap (Munint p 5.90, SD p 1.47 vs.Mint p 5.38, SD p 1.43 and Mcon p 5.45, SD p 1.40;t(300) p 2.75, p p .006) and the drain cleaner (Munint p5.66, SD p 1.64 vs. Mint p 5.17, SD p 1.51 and Mcon p5.05, SD p 1.53; t(300) p 2.92, p p .004).

Mediation. We then tested the specific predicted pathway(firm intentions r resource allocation r quality r purchaseintent) using a serial mediation model. In all previous anal-yses, results in the intended and control conditions followedthe same pattern. Therefore, we dummy coded the threeconditions as 1 p unintended, 0 p intended, and control.We then entered the measures of resource allocation andproduct quality as mediators of the effect of firm intentionson purchase intent. Separate mediation analyses were runfor each of the products. A bootstrap analysis with 5,000samples (Preacher and Hayes 2008) indicated that the fullserial mediation model using both quality and resource al-location was significant for the dish soap (indirect effect p.134, SE p .06, 95% CI p .041 to .282) and the draincleaner (indirect effect p .187, SE p .07, 95% CI p .075to .361). However, additional analyses indicated that the“reverse” model (intentions r quality r resources r pur-chase intent) was much weaker for the dish soap (indirecteffect p .014, SE p .11, 95% CI p .002 to .049) andnonsignificant for the drain cleaner (indirect effect p .013,SE p .01, 95% CI p �.003 to .046), suggesting that thepredicted serial mediation model best explained our data.

We also conducted a second set of regression analyseswith only the intended and unintended conditions and ob-served an identical set of results. The full serial mediationmodel using both quality and resource allocation was sig-nificant for the dish soap (indirect effect p .11, SE p .07,95% CI p .004 to .29) and the drain cleaner (indirect effectp .22, SE p .08, 95% CI p .087 to .424). However,additional analyses indicated that the “reverse” models (in-tentions r quality r resources r purchase intent) were notsignificant for the dish soap (indirect effect p .01, SE p.01, 95% CI p �.0002 to .053) or the drain cleaner (indirecteffect p .01, SE p .01, 95% CI p �.003 to .059), sug-gesting that the predicted serial mediation model best ex-plained our data.

Discussion

These results were consistent with the predictions outlinedin the Introduction. Specifically, a difference in firm inten-tions led consumers to draw different inferences about thefirm’s allocation of resources. In turn, beliefs about resourceallocation changed perceptions of product quality and, ul-timately, purchase intent. Moreover, this study establishedthat in the absence of information about firm intentions,consumers appear to infer intentionality—in other words,intended enhancements (and compensatory inferences) ap-pear to be the default assumption.

EXPERIMENT 2: ALTERNATIVEEXPLANATIONS

Experiments 2a and 2b sought to address two potentialalternative explanations for the intended versus unintendedenhancement effect. The first is that companies may chooseto indirectly signal their best product features, and, hence,any feature that a firm intentionally enhances reflects thefirm’s strongest attribute. For example, by advertising thata Las Vegas resort is “good for families,” a firm may besignaling a lack of gambling options. Therefore, the fact thata company chooses to green its products may signal that itsproducts are of lower quality. Note that the results of thecontrol condition in experiment 1 do not support this pro-posal, since in that condition the firm’s intentions were nevermentioned, and yet participants made the same pattern ofinferences as in the intended condition. Nevertheless, to testthis alternative, experiment 2a included a fourth care-about-both condition in which participants were explicitly told thatthe firm intended to improve both the product’s environ-mental benefits and its quality (similar to the BMW examplein the introduction). Our proposed resource allocation ac-count, however, predicts that this should not be effective,given that consumers should still assume that resources arezero-sum. Therefore, even when the company intends toboth green the product and improve quality, consumersshould be less likely to purchase the product compared toa case when the same green enhancement occurred unin-tentionally.

Experiment 2b sought to address yet another potentialexplanation for the effect. In the previous studies the ma-terials explicitly stated that the company was developing anew product. Therefore, in cases where the green enhance-ment occurred unintentionally, participants might have in-ferred that if the company was not focused on greening theproduct, it must have been focused on improving quality.In other words, communicating that the company had de-veloped a new product with an unintended green benefitmay lead to the inference that the company had successfullyimproved both the environmental impact and the quality ofthe product.

To address this possibility, experiment 2b presented a newscenario in which we explicitly stated that the companysought to improve a particular dimension (e.g., the viscosityof a drain cleaner). In cases where the green benefit was




FIGURE 2

MEAN RATINGS OF PURCHASE INTENT, PRODUCT QUALITY,AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION (EXPERIMENT 2A)

unintended, participants read that the company intended toimprove viscosity, while the green benefit occurred as anunintended side effect. In contrast, when the green benefitwas intended, participants read that the company intendedto improve both viscosity and the product’s environmentalimpact. If this alternative explanation based on differentialfocus is correct, when participants are explicitly told thatthe firm intended to improve the drain cleaner’s viscosity,the intended versus unintended green enhancement shouldhave no effect on beliefs about resource allocation and pur-chase intent. However, if the resource allocation account iscorrect, then we should obtain the results of the previousstudy even when participants are explicitly told that thecompany’s primary focus was to improve viscosity. In otherwords, participants should still infer that the company di-verted more resources away from product quality when itwas intentionally pursuing both viscosity and green benefits.

Method

Experiment 2a. Four hundred four adult participantswere recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (Mage p27.7, 36% female). Participants were randomly assigned toone of four conditions (intended, unintended, control, andcare-about-both) and read a description of a new green prod-uct, an all-purpose cleaner. As in experiment 1, participantsin the intended condition read that “as initially intended, thecleaner is better for the environment,” whereas participantsin the unintended enhancement condition read that the greenenhancement occurred as “an unintended side effect.” Thecontrol condition made no mention of intentions. Finally,participants in the care-about-both condition read that thecompany “intended to create a product that is both good forthe environment and is a good household cleaner” (see app.B).

After reading the description about the household cleaner,participants reported the following three items: rating ofproduct quality for the new all-purpose cleaner (“How wouldyou rate the cleaning efficacy of this new all-purposecleaner?” 1 p low, 5 p average, 9 p high), agreementwith the resource allocation statement, and purchase intentfor the product. The resource allocation and purchase intentmeasures were the same as in the previous study.

Experiment 2b. Five hundred fourteen adult participants(Mage p 33, 62% female) were recruited while attending aFourth of July fireworks display. This survey appeared ina packet containing several other unrelated studies and wasthe only one examining green products.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of four con-ditions in a 2 (intention: intended vs. unintended) # 2 (focalattribute: specified vs. unspecified) design. All participantsread about a drain cleaning solution with a green enhance-ment. As in the previous two studies, participants in the twointended conditions read that as “initially intended, thecleaner is better for the environment,” whereas participantsin the unintended conditions read that the green enhance-ment occurred as “an unintended side effect.” Participants

in the unintended � focal attribute specified condition readthat the company was trying to develop a formula whichwould “have better viscosity,” whereas those in the intended� focal attribute specified condition read that the firm de-veloped a formula that would “both have better viscosityand be better for the environment.” Participants in the “focalattribute unspecified” conditions saw the same prompts asin the previous studies.

After reading the drain cleaner description, participantsreported their perception of the product’s quality on twoitems (“How would you rate the ability of this new draincleaner to break up clogs?” and “How would you rate theability of this new drain cleaner to prevent future buildup?”;1 p low, 5 p average, 9 p high), their agreement withthe resource allocation statement, and their purchase intent.The resource allocation and purchase intent measures werethe same as in the previous two studies (see app. C).

Experiment 2a Results

Purchase Intent. Results from this study are depicted infigure 2. A one-way ANOVA indicated a significant effectof condition on ratings of purchase intent, F(3, 400) p 5.28,p p .001. Contrary to the signaling alternative, purchaseintent in the care-about-both condition was significantlylower than in the unintended condition (Mboth p 5.57, SDp 1.81 vs. Munint p 6.22, SD p 1.76), t(203) p -2.58, pp .010 and was not significantly different from the intendedand control conditions (Mint p 5.22, SD p 2.06, Mcon p5.80, SD p 1.63), t(200) p 1.29 and t(201) p �.94, re-spectively, p 1 .1. A planned contrast indicated that partic-ipants expressed higher purchase intent in the unintendedcondition than in the intended, control, or care-about-bothconditions, t(400) p 3.28, p p .001.

Resource Allocation. A one-way ANOVA revealed asignificant effect of condition on beliefs about resource al-location, F(3, 400) p 13.74, p ! .001. Contrary to thesignaling alternative, participants thought that the firm di-verted more resources away from product quality in the care-




about-both condition than in the unintended condition (Mboth

p 4.33, SD p 2.03 vs. Munint p 2.84, SD p 2.05), t(203)p 5.22, p ! .001. In addition, beliefs about resource allo-cation in the care-about-both condition were not signifi-cantly different from the intended and control conditions(Mint p 4.45, SD p 2.16, Mcon p 4.18, SD p 1.88), t(200)p .42 and t(201) p .55, respectively, p 1 .1. A plannedcontrast confirmed that participants thought that the firmdiverted more resources away from quality in the intended,control, and care-about-both conditions than in the unin-tended condition, t(400) p 6.35, p ! .001.

Product Quality. A one-way ANOVA revealed a mar-ginally significant effect of condition on ratings of productquality, F(3, 400) p 2.19, p p .088. Participants rated theproduct as somewhat lower quality in the care-about-bothcondition than in the unintended condition (Mboth p 6.09,SD p 1.34 vs. Munint p 6.28, SD p 1.32), though thisdifference did not reach statistical significance, t(203) p1.06, p p .29. However, ratings of product quality in thecare-about-both condition did not differ significantly fromthose in the intended and control conditions (Mint p 5.89,SD p 1.37, Mcon p 5.88, SD p 1.17), t(200) p 1.04 andt(201) p 1.18, respectively, p 1 .1. And, a planned contrastconfirmed that participants thought that the firm divertedfewer resources away from quality in the unintended con-dition than in the intended, control, or care-about-both con-ditions, t(400) p 2.23, p p .026.

Mediation. To test the proposed mechanism, we enteredboth perceptions of resource allocation and product qualityinto a serial mediation model predicting purchase intent(analogous to the previous study). Since results in the in-tended, control, and care-about-both conditions followed thesame pattern in this study, we dummy-coded those threeconditions as 1 p unintended and 0 p intended, control,and care-about-both. A bootstrap analysis with 5,000 sam-ples (Preacher and Hayes 2008) indicated that the full serialmediation model using both quality and resource allocationwas significant (indirect effect p .095, SE p .04, 95% CIp .027 to .192). However, additional analyses indicated thatthe “reverse” model (intentions r quality r resources r

purchase intent) was much weaker (indirect effect p .017,SE p .11, 95% CI p .002 to .053), suggesting that thepredicted serial mediation model best explained our data.

Experiment 2b Results

Purchase Intent. A two-way ANOVA revealed a sig-nificant main effect of firm intentions on purchase intent,such that purchase intent was higher when the green im-provement was unintended (M p 5.20, SD p 2.20) thanwhen it was intended (M p 4.64, SD p 2.03), F(1, 505)p 8.33, p p .004. This effect held both when the focalbenefit was specified (Munint�spec p 5.34, SD p 2.29 vs.Mint�spec p 4.73, SD p 1.97), t(255) p 2.25, p p .025,and when it was unspecified (Munint p 5.04, SD p 2.08 vs.Mint p 4.56, SD p 2.09), t(250) p 1.83, p p .069. In

contrast, there was no effect of focal attribute (whether thefocal attribute was specified or unspecified) and no inter-action, p 1 .21.

Resource Allocation. A two-way ANOVA revealed asignificant main effect of firm intentions on perceptions ofresource allocation, such that participants thought that thecompany diverted more resources away from product qualitywhen the green enhancement was intended (M p 4.57, SDp 2.03) than when it was unintended (M p 3.56, SD p2.24), F(1, 510) p 28.12, p ! .001. This effect held bothwhen the focal attribute was specified (Munint�spec p 3.35,SD p 2.22 vs. Mint�spec p 4.40, SD p 2.09), t(255) p3.87, p ! .001, and when it was unspecified (Munint p 3.77,SD p 2.26 vs. Mint p 4.73, SD p 1.98), t(255) p 3.63,p ! .001. On this measure we did observe a main effect ofwhether or not the focal attribute was specified, such thatparticipants thought that the firm diverted fewer resourcesaway from quality when the company intended to improveviscosity than when the focal benefit was unspecified, F(1,510) p 3.92, p p .048. Importantly, however, there wasno interaction with firm intentions (p p .81)

Product Quality. We did not observe any significant ef-fect of intentions (F(1, 505) p 1.23, p p .29) or interactionson the measures directly related to product quality (Munint p4.83, SD p 1.46 vs. Mint p 4.86, SD p 1.62, and Munint�spec

p 5.23, SD p 1.43 vs. Mint�spec p 4.91, SD p 1.51).

Mediation. We then conducted a bootstrap analysis with5,000 samples (Preacher and Hayes 2008) to test whetherthe belief in resource allocation mediated the effect of firmintentions on purchase intent (whether or not the focal at-tribute specified and the interaction where included as co-variates). Ratings of product quality were not included inthis model, since we did not find differences on that measure.This analysis indicated that the indirect effect of resourceallocation was significant ( p .086, SE p .031; 95%a # bCI p 037 to .158).

Discussion

Results from experiment 2a indicated that explicitly stat-ing that the company cares about both the environment andquality is not sufficient to overcome a decrease in purchaseintent. In fact, results in the care-about-both condition fol-lowed the same pattern as those in the intended and controlconditions. This result is consistent with our hypothesis thatbeliefs about resource allocation and notions of zero-sumare driving the effect of firm intentions on purchase intent.

The results from experiment 2b helped to rule out a sec-ond potential alternative explanation, namely, that consum-ers inferred that if the firm unintentionally greened the prod-uct, it must have instead focused on improving quality.However, when we explicitly stated in all conditions thatthe company had focused on a specific performance attribute(improving viscosity), we still observed the predicted effectsof intended (versus unintended) enhancements on inferencesabout resource allocation and subsequent purchase inten-




tions. Thus, we replicate the findings of the previous studieseven when information about the company’s focus was spec-ified.

EXPERIMENT 3: BOUNDARYCONDITIONS

The previous studies found support for the hypothesis thatconsumers are less likely to purchase green products if theybelieve that the green benefit is intended than when it occursas an unintended side effect. However, other research onsocially beneficial product attributes has identified a differ-ent pattern of results, often finding a positive halo effect onsubsequent product evaluations (Nisbett and Wilson 1977).For example, past research has found that firms that engagein Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices are per-ceived to have better products (Blair and Chernev 2014)and that fair trade chocolate is perceived to be healthier andlower in calories (Schuldt et al. 2012). The dominant mech-anism in such cases is that the morally good benefit increasesliking of the firm, which has a spillover effect on evaluationsof the product. Though past research has not addressed therole of firm intentions per se, this research does raise im-portant question regarding the contexts in which sociallybeneficial product enhancements lead to a decrease in con-sumer interest (as observed here) versus an increase in con-sumer interest.

We suggest that one key difference between these twotypes of findings is whether or not the socially beneficialattribute is integral to the composition of the product. Forexample, green benefits are typically inherent to the productitself and involve features of the product (e.g., increasedbiodegradability, less harmful chemicals). In contrast, ben-efits such as fair trade or CSR reflect actions of the firmand are separate from the product. Therefore, we hypoth-esize that one key difference between these two sets offindings—and, thus, a key moderator of the negative effectof firm intentions on purchase interest—may be whether ornot the benefit in question is inherent to the product’s com-position.

The present study tested this prediction directly. We pre-dicted that when consumers are told about a benefit that isinherent to the composition of the product (e.g., a greenbenefit), they will infer that the company diverted resourcesaway from product quality and, as a result, will be less likelyto purchase the product. However, when the enhancementis separate from the composition of the product, such aswhen a company engages in fair trade practices, consumerswill not make compensatory inferences and will instead havepositive evaluations of the product—perhaps even more pos-itive when that benefit is perceived as intended (vs.unintended)—because positive feelings toward the firm maycarry over to evaluations of the product.

Furthermore, combining the results of the previous threestudies as well as the work on halo effects (Blair and Cher-nev 2014; Schuldt et al. 2012) we predict two differentmechanisms underlying this interaction. In the case of in-

tended (unintended) green benefits, the present studies iden-tify a mechanism related to beliefs about resource allocationand subsequent expectations about quality. In contrast, re-search on halo effects has identified a mechanism related toliking of the firm. Therefore, the present study tests formoderated mediation whereby, for green benefits (inherentto the product), inferences about resource allocation andquality mediate the effect of firm intentions on purchaseintent, while for fair trade benefits (separate from the prod-uct), liking of the firm mediates the effect of intended (vs.unintended) benefits on purchase intent.

Method

We recruited 400 adult participants (Mage p 29.7, 34%female) from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Participants wererandomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 intention(intended vs. unintended) # 2 type of socially beneficialenhancement (inherent vs. separate) design. All participantsevaluated an all-purpose cleaner. Participants in the inherentbenefit conditions evaluated stimuli that were identical tothe intended and unintended conditions of experiment 2a.Specifically, participants in the intended conditions read that“as initially intended, the all-purpose cleaner is better forthe environment,” whereas participants in the unintendedconditions read that green benefit occurred as “an unintendedside effect” (see app. D).

Participants in the separate benefit conditions read aboutthe same manufacturer, but in these cases, the benefit wasa fair trade agreement with the workers manufacturing theall-purpose cleaner. In the intended conditions participantsread that, “as intended, the new trade agreement providesoverseas workers with a fair wage and higher quality of lifein their home country.” In contrast, in the unintended con-ditions participants read that the local government now man-dates a fair trade agreement. Therefore, “as an unintendedconsequence, the new trade agreement provides overseasworkers with a fair wage and higher quality of life in theirhome country.” After reading these vignettes, participantsreported their purchase intent (1 p definitely would notbuy, 9 p definitely would buy), perception of the product’scleaning ability (1 p low, 5 p average, 9 p high), agree-ment with the resource allocation statement, and liking ofthe firm (1 p not at all, 9 p very much).

Results

Purchase Intent. Results from this study are depicted infigure 3. A two-way ANOVA revealed a significant inter-action between the firm’s intention (intended vs. unintended)and the type of socially beneficial enhancement (inherentvs. separate), F(1, 396) p 14.58, p ! .001. As was observedin the previous studies, purchase intent was higher when thegreen (inherent) benefit was unintended compared to whenit was intended (Munint p 6.98, SD p 1.35 vs. Mint p 6.16,SD p 1.70), t(196) p 3.75, p ! .001. However, when thebenefit was separate from the product (fair trade), there wasa marginal effect in the opposite direction, such that pur-




FIGURE 3

MEAN RATINGS OF PURCHASE INTENT IN EXPERIMENT 3

chase intent was higher when the fair trade contract wasintended compared to when it was unintended (Mint p 6.12,SD p 1.62 vs. Munint p 5.76, SD p 1.44), t(200) p 1.55,p p .10.

Product Quality. Measures of product quality were sub-mitted to an analogous two-way ANOVA, which revealeda significant interaction between the firm’s intention and thetype of social benefit, F(1, 396) p 12.72, p ! .001. In thegreen (inherent) conditions, we again observed that partic-ipants reported higher product quality when the green benefitwas unintended than when it was intended (Munint p 6.69,SD p 1.31 vs. Mint p 5.99, SD p 1.47), t(196) p 3.55,p ! .001. However, when the benefit was separate from theproduct (fair trade), there was a trending effect in the op-posite direction, such that participants reported higher prod-uct quality when the fair trade contract was intended thanwhen it was unintended (Mint p 5.94, SD p 1.36 vs. Munint

p 5.70, SD p 1.15), t(200) p 1.38, p p .17.

Resource Allocation. For the measure related to beliefsabout resource allocation, the interaction between the firm’sintentions and the type of social benefit was only marginallysignificant, F(1, 396) p 2.12, p p .14. Here, the patternwas somewhat different. In the green conditions, we ob-served that, as expected, participants believed that the com-pany diverted more resources away from quality when thegreen benefit was intended than when it was unintended(Mint p 4.51, SD p 2.12 vs. Munint p 3.19, SD p 2.01),t(196) p 4.50, p ! .001. Unlike the other measures, how-ever, in the case of the fair trade, participants also thoughtthe company diverted more resources away from qualitywhen it intentionally made the fair trade agreement, albeitto a lesser extent than in the green benefit conditions (Mint

p 3.73, SD p 1.99 vs. Munint p 3.01, SD p 1.94), t(200)p 2.60, p p .01.

Liking. Measures of liking also showed a marginal in-teraction between the firm’s intention and the type of socialbenefit, F(1, 396) p 2.96, p p .09. Consistent with pastresearch on halo effects, when the benefit was separate (fairtrade), participants expressed greater liking of the firm whenthe benefit was intended than when it was unintended (Mint

p 6.21, SD p 1.75 vs. Munint p 5.43, SD p 1.93), t(200)p 2.99, p p .003. In the case of the green benefit, however,there was no difference in liking of the firm depending onwhether or not the firm intended to make the green en-hancement (Mint p 6.44, SD p 1.73 vs. Munint p 6.25, SDp 1.39), t(196) p 0.85, p p .39.

Mediation. We then conducted a moderated mediationanalysis to test the predicted relationship of firm intentionsby type of social benefit on purchase intent through themediators of quality ratings (green benefit) and liking (fairtrade benefit). Firm intentions were entered as the predictorvariable, benefit type (inherent versus separate) as the mod-erator, and quality ratings and liking were the two mediators.The bootstrap analysis indicated that the full model wassignificant, R2 p .55, p ! .0001 (see fig. 4), and that therewere two distinct indirect effects that were conditional onthe benefit type. As predicted, inferences about quality me-diated the effect of firm intentions on purchase intent forthe green enhancement (inherent benefit) (indirect effect p�.43; 95% CI p �.716 to �.201) but not for the fair tradecontract (separate benefit) (indirect effect p .15; 95% CI p�.062 to .372). Conversely, liking of the firm mediated theeffect of firm intentions on purchase intent for the fair tradecontract (separate benefit; indirect effect p .19; 95% CI p.069 to .366) but not for the green enhancement (inherentbenefit) (indirect effect p .05; 95% CI p �.059 to .170).

We conducted one further serial mediation analysis thatincluded inferences about resource allocation as well asquality (since a combined serial and moderation analysiswas not permitted in the model above), which tested thesame pathway as examined in the previous three studies.Again replicating the previous analyses, this analysis indi-cated that for the green enhancement (inherent benefit), thefull serial mediation model using both quality and resourceallocation was significant (indirect effect p �.16; 95% CIp �.33 to �.05). However, this same model was not sig-nificant for the fair trade benefit (indirect effect p �.04;95% CI p �.15 to .01).

Discussion

In sum, purchase intent and quality ratings showed thepredicted patterns of results: when the benefit was inherentto the product (green benefit) unintended improvementswere rated more favorably (higher quality and higher pur-chase intent) than intended improvements. Conversely,when the benefit was separate from the product (fair trade)intended improvements were rated more favorably than un-




FIGURE 4

MODERATED MEDIATION ANALYSES (EXPERIMENT 3)

NOTE.—†p p .10, *p ! .01, **p ! .001.

intended ones. Measures of resource allocation and likingof the firm showed somewhat different patterns, where, onthe whole, intended (vs. unintended) benefits were seen asdrawing more resources away from quality, but intended(vs. unintended) benefits also led to greater liking of thefirm. However, this second set of conclusions (pertaining tomeasures of resources and liking) should be qualified by thefact that participants believed that the firm diverted resourcesaway from quality more when the benefit was inherent tothe product than when it was separate (Cohen’s d of .64 vs..37, respectively). In addition, the effect of liking was muchgreater when the benefit was separate from the product com-pared to when it was inherent (Cohen’s d of .42 vs. .12,respectively).

This difference between the inherent versus separate ben-efits was further specified by the results of the mediationanalyses. We observed that the effect of firm intentions onpurchase intent was mediated by inferences about qualitywhen the benefit was inherent to the product (green benefit)but not when the benefit was separate from the product (fairtrade). Conversely, the effect of firm intentions on purchaseintent was mediated by liking of the firm when the benefitwas separate from the product but not when the benefit wasinherent to it. This result is highly informative as it both (a)demonstrates an important boundary condition on the neg-ative intention effect observed in the first two experimentsand (b) provides a way of reconciling the current effectswith previous studies that have found a positive halo effecton product evaluations.

This study also identified at least two patterns of resultsthat are potentially worthy of further research. The first isthe implied dissociation between purchase interest and liking

of the firm for green products. The results from this studysuggest that, in essence, intended (vs. unintended) greenimprovements may lead individuals to express both lowerpurchase interest in the product (because of quality percep-tions) but potentially greater liking of the firm. This maybe an interesting pattern to investigate in subsequent re-search in order to identify the situations in which consumersmay be more likely to weight quality inferences versus likingof the firm when purchasing products with social benefits.It further suggests that if firms are able to overcome oraddress inferences about lower product quality, they maybe able to capitalize on positive reputational benefits.

The second interesting result that is that participants didseem to infer (at least some) reallocation of resources evenwhen the benefit was separate from the product (i.e., fairtrade). This suggests that inferences about zero-sum may bequite robust, extending beyond beliefs about product com-position. At the same time, such inferences do not alwaysappear to lead to beliefs about diminished quality. For ex-ample, it may be that in cases such as fair trade, the beliefthat the firm allocated fewer resources to quality is overcomeby the halo effect associated with the greater liking of thefirm.

EXPERIMENT 4: ADDITIONALATTRIBUTE TRADE-OFFS

The goal of experiment 4 was to explore the generalityof the intended versus unintended effect. The previous stud-ies all examined green enhancements for home goods (clean-ers, dish soap, etc.). In this study we examined a new productcategory in order to test whether similar effects exist for




other types of socially desirable trade-offs in product at-tributes. Specifically, we built on previous research whichhas identified a tasty p unhealthy lay theory regarding foodproducts (Raghunathan et al. 2006).

Participants read a mock news article about a new methodof producing ice cream (which was actually low-temperatureextrusion, or the “slow-churned” process). Half of the par-ticipants read that this new method was developed becausemanufacturers intended to create a new ice cream that wasboth tastier and healthier. The other half of participants readthat the new method was developed because manufacturersintended to find a tastier ice cream and that health benefitsoccurred as an unintended side effect. In both cases, the icecream and production methods were described identically—the only thing that differed was information regarding theintentions (or lack thereof) behind developing the ice cream’shealth benefits.

Based on the results of the previous experiments, we pre-dicted that consumers should assume that resources are zero-sum and, thus, infer that the ice cream that was intended tobe healthier is less tasty than the ice cream that was healthieras an unintended side effect. Beyond extending the intendedversus unintended effect into a new domain, this study alsohad a number of methodological benefits in that it relied onmore naturalistic stimuli, provided identical informationabout the underlying process/innovation (low-temperatureextrusion), and eliminated potential confounds (e.g., thenumber of enhancements) that the previous experimentssought to address. In addition, this study offered practicalrelevance as a number of large food and beverage compa-nies, such as PepsiCo, have been experiencing pressure fromthe government to improve the healthfulness of their offer-ings and have started to reengineer some of their productsto reduce their sugar, salt, and fat content.

Method

We recruited 295 adult participants (Mage p 36.8, 61%female) from an online survey pool. All participants wereasked to read a fictitious newspaper article (based on anactual article; see Moskin 2006) about a new method forproducing ice cream. Participants in both conditions (in-tended vs. unintended) read about a new low-temperatureextrusion process for manufacturing ice cream. Participantsin the intended conditions read that the ice cream industrydeveloped this new method because they both “intended tocreate an ice cream that was much healthier,” and “developa product that matched the creaminess of homemade icecream.” In contrast, participants in the unintended conditionread that ice cream industry developed this new methodbecause they “intended to develop a product that matchedthe creaminess of homemade ice cream,” and that uninten-tionally they “also happened to develop a product that wasmuch healthier too” (see app. E).

After reading these vignettes, participants rated how tasty(1 p not tasty, 9 p very tasty), how rich tasting (1 p notrich, 9 p very rich), and how creamy (1 p not creamy, 9p very creamy) they thought the ice cream would be. They

also rated their agreement with a statement regarding re-source allocation (“Do you think that in order to make theice cream healthier, the company took resources away frommaking this product better tasting?” 1 p definitely not, 9p definitely) as well as their likelihood of purchase (1 pnot at all likely, 9 p very likely).

At the end of the study, participants were asked to com-plete a manipulation check in which they were asked torecall whether the health benefits of the ice cream wereintended or unintended or whether they did not remember.A manipulation check was used in this study given the morenaturalistic, and hence, subtle manipulation of firm inten-tions. Forty-eight participants (16%) did not pass this check(selected either the incorrect option or reported that they didnot remember) and were excluded from subsequent analyses.

Results

The measures related to tastiness/product quality formeda reliable scale (a p .86) and were averaged to produce asingle measure. Consistent with the findings of the previousstudies, participants thought that the ice cream would betastier when the health benefit was unintended compared towhen it was intended (Munint p 7.11, SD p 1.22 vs. Mint p6.59, SD p 1.44), t(245) p 3.03, p p .003. Additionally,participants were less likely to agree that the manufacturersdiverted resources away from product quality when thehealth benefit was unintended than when it was intended(Munint p 4.33, SD p 2.17 vs. Mint p 5.17, SD p 2.33),t(243) p 2.91, p p .004. Measures of purchase intent werenot significantly different across the intended versus unin-tended conditions, t(244) p .75, p p .45, though the patternwas directionally consistent with the previous studies, (Munint

p 6.22, SD p 2.11 vs. Mint p 6.02, SD p 2.05).

Mediation

We then conducted a serial mediation analysis to test thepredicted relationship between resource allocation, productquality, and purchase intent (analogous to the previous stud-ies). A bootstrap analysis with 5,000 samples (Preacher andHayes 2008) indicated that the full serial mediation modelusing both quality and resource allocation was significant(indirect effect p �.22, SE p .08, 95% CI p �.41 to�.08). However, additional analyses indicated that the “re-verse” model (intentions r quality r resources r purchaseintent) was much weaker (indirect effect p �.069, SE p.04, 95% CI p �.17 to �.02), suggesting that the predictedserial mediation model best explained our data.

Discussion

These results indicate that the effects of intended (vs.unintended) enhancements extend beyond green products toinclude other types of trade-offs such as the link betweenthe healthfulness of a product and taste. This study alsocontributed to the previous studies in that the stimuli reliedon a more naturalistic context that was derived from an




actual newspaper article. Finally, this study was novel inthat it provided specific information about the underlyingmanufacturing process (i.e., low-temperature extrusion).This is important because it shows that the intended (vs.unintended) effect persists even when specific informationabout the product enhancement is provided.

GENERAL DISCUSSIONBeliefs about intentionality are central to many aspects

of psychology. However, to date, little is known about howintentions may influence consumer perceptions. The presentstudies offer insight into this process as they suggest thatinformation about the firm’s intentions may play a key rolein how socially beneficial products are evaluated. We ob-served that when a company makes an environmental en-hancement to a product, consumers are less likely to pur-chase the product if they learn that the enhancement isintended, compared with when it occurs as an unintendedside effect. This effect obtained across multiple types ofproducts and scenarios. Thus, a principle finding of thispaper is that intended improvements may have ironic con-sequences: deliberately enhancing a product to make it moreappealing may actually lead to a decrease in consumer in-terest.

These studies also identify the underlying reasons for thiseffect while ruling out a number of alternative explanations.Experiment 1 established that differences in firm intentionslead consumers to draw different inferences about the al-location of the firm’s resources. In turn, beliefs about re-source allocation changed perceptions of product quality andultimately, purchase intent. Moreover, this study establishedthat in the absence of information about firm intentions,consumers appear to infer intentionality—in other words,intended enhancements appear to be the default assumption.

Experiments 2a and 2b provided further support for theproposed mechanism by addressing potential alternative ex-planations. Specifically, experiment 2a showed that evenwhen the company explicitly stated that they cared aboutboth the environment and product quality, inferences aboutresource allocation and product quality were no differentfrom the intended condition. Experiment 2b further showedthat even when it was explicitly stated that the company hadfocused on a nongreen attribute (improving viscosity), westill observed the predicted effect of intended (unintended)enhancements on inferences about resource allocation, sug-gesting that these results are not due to pragmatic inferencesabout areas of specialization.

Experiment 3 identified an important boundary condition.In this study we found that a key moderator of the negativeeffect of firm intentions on purchase intent is whether ornot the benefit in question is inherent to the product’s com-position. A moderated mediation analysis indicated thatwhen the benefit is inherent to the composition of the prod-uct (e.g., a green benefit), intended (vs. unintended) benefitsdecrease purchase intent because of inferences about re-source allocation and quality. However, when the benefit isseparate from the product (e.g., fair trade), intended (vs.

unintended) benefits increase purchase intentions because ofliking of the firm.

Finally, experiment 4 demonstrated the robustness of thiseffect and found that the negative effect of firm intentionsgeneralizes even to domains that are unrelated to green prod-ucts. This result is important because it suggests that theintended (vs. unintended) effect may be much broader inscope and may extend to many contexts in which consumershave an intuitive theory that product enhancements alongone dimension come at the expense of performance on otherdimensions.

Limitations and Future Directions

Across studies, the effects of intentions on quality ratingswere somewhat weaker than on the other measures (i.e., themeasures of purchase intent and resource allocation). Wefound robust differences in experiments 1, 3, and 4 butsomewhat weaker effect in experiment 2a and a null effectin experiment 2b. We suggest that the most likely expla-nation for this difference is related to the types of measuresthat were used. While the measures of purchase intent andbeliefs about resource allocation were fairly straightforward(and generalize across product categories), the measures ofquality asked about attributes that were specific to the prod-uct in question (e.g., a drain cleaner’s ability to break upclogs). We argue that specific measures of quality are im-portant given the potential practical implications of this re-search as well as the precedent set by previous research onthe zero-sum heuristic, which also asked about specific qual-ity attributes (e.g., Chernev 2007). Nevertheless, it is un-likely that participants have detailed theories about exactlyhow resource allocation changes specific quality attributes;rather, they may hold more general beliefs that the productis simply “worse.” As a result, measures that ask aboutspecific product attributes may produce weaker effects.

That said, the data as a whole suggest a very robust patternof results that includes inferences about product quality. Wefind significant differences on the quality measures and sig-nificant mediation results in all but one study and, therefore,argue that the effect of firm intentions on purchase intentis in fact due to beliefs about how the firm allocated re-sources and subsequent inferences about product quality.This interpretation is further reinforced by the results ofexperiment 3, which demonstrate that, when the social ben-efit is separate from the product itself, a very different sortof process model obtains, having to do with liking of thefirm rather than inferences about product quality.

A second question involves other types of boundary con-ditions, such as individual differences in interest in greenproducts. One might expect that desires to see green productsin either a positive or negative light may in turn either reduceor enhance the negative impact of intended green enhance-ments on evaluations of green products (Jain and Mahes-waran 2000). A series of pilot studies confirmed this pre-diction. For example, we conducted one experiment in whichparticipants evaluated a series of green products adaptedfrom Chernev (2007). Half of the participants read that the




green enhancement was intended, while the other half readthat the green enhancement was unintended. Participantsthen rated the perceived quality of the products, and alsocompleted a 10-item scale, which assessed participants’ con-cern for the environment and their interest in green productsoverall (a p .85).

The results from this experiment indicated a significanttwo-way interaction between the firm’s intentions and green-interest, b p �.16, p ! .05. A further spotlight analysis atplus and minus one standard indicated that individuals lowin green interest judged the perceived quality of the productsto be worse when the green improvement was intended ver-sus when it was unintended, b p .29, p p .014. In contrast,for participants that were higher in green interest, the ma-nipulation of intention had no effect on ratings of perceivedproduct quality, b p �.04, p p .72

These initial results suggest yet another interesting avenuefor future research in this area. In particular, it appears thatmotivated reasoning (Jain and Maheswaran 2000) can leadindividuals to override the zero-sum heuristic and see greenproducts in a positive light. This raises a number of inter-esting questions regarding how inferences about firm re-sources may interact with motivated reasoning. For example,do these processes interact serially such that positivity to-ward green products literally overrides the zero-sum heu-ristic? Would changes in the degree of deliberation (e.g., viamanipulations of cognitive load or response time) makehigh-green-interest consumers respond more like low-green-interest consumers? What other types of motivations mightoverride inferences related to the zero-sum heuristic and firmintentions? We see these as interesting areas for future in-vestigation in this area.

Implications

These results have a number of theoretical and practicalimplications. Beyond broadly demonstrating the importanceof firm intentions to consumer perceptions, one theoreticalcontribution of this work is that it sheds light on intentionsas an important moderator of consumer’s reliance on thezero-sum heuristic. While prior research has focused on doc-umenting the existence of compensatory inferences in dif-ferent contexts (see, e.g., across alternatives, Chernev andCarpenter 2001; or, within an alternative, Chernev 2007),little research has been done to identify factors that are likelyto foster or attenuate them. In this context, our researchdemonstrates that consumers are more likely to make com-pensatory inferences when they perceive that the companyintentionally invested resources in one particular attributeor diverted them away from other attributes, which in turnappears to have important downstream consequences forpurchase intentions.

A second significant theoretical contribution of this workis that it identifies the conditions under which socially ben-eficial actions will either increase or decrease consumer in-terest. In short, there are two main theoretical models thatmake contrasting predictions about the evaluation of productenhancements: compensation or zero-sum (discussed above)

and covariation. Under a covariation model (e.g., Bettman,John, and Scott 1986), individuals may assume that positiveattributes on one dimension correspond to improvements onother dimensions (i.e., halo effects). In this vein, our researchserves to link these two models by demonstrating that withinthe domain of socially beneficial product attributes, a keyfactor seems to be whether the benefit is seen as inherentto the product itself or separate. This finding may be worthyof further investigation. Future research could illuminate thespecific boundary conditions around the types of benefitsthat are likely to be seen as part of the product or not, aswell as the potential changes in the evaluative context (e.g.,consumer mind-set) that may push individuals toward oneconstrual or another.

From an applied perspective, these results are relevant toa number of firms that offer products with environmentalbenefits. Several surveys of consumer attitudes have iden-tified that one of the most important issues for consumerswhen deciding whether or not to purchase green productsis whether the quality of the green product is undermined(Ginsberg and Bloom 2004; Roper Green Gauge Report2002). Therefore, these findings may be particularly rele-vant, as they suggest a number of ways that firms manu-facturing green products may best communicate those en-vironmental benefits, while avoiding any potential losses inconsumer interest.

The results of experiment 3 suggest a second practicalimplication. Where applicable, firms may benefit from dis-tancing socially beneficial enhancements from the productitself, thereby obviating losses in perceived quality whilemaintaining a boost in reputation. In cases where the benefitis inherent to the product, the present studies suggest thatfirms may need to go the extra mile in specifying the exactnature of the enhancement and how it came about and inensuring that consumers better understand the underlyingmechanisms supporting both the product’s green benefitsand its quality on other dimensions.

CONCLUSION

The present studies provide one of the first investigationsinto the effect of intentions on consumer perceptions. Theseresults are informative because they identify that (1) inten-tions are central to the application of different lay beliefsregarding how firms allocate their resources, (2) the effectsof socially beneficial product enhancements can be coun-terintuitive, in that intending to improve a product may back-fire and can actually make consumers less likely to purchaseit, and (3) a key moderator of compensatory inferences ver-sus halo effects appears to be whether the social benefit isseen as something that is part of the product or not. Froman applied perspective, these results are also informative asthey not only shed light on how green products are evaluatedby consumers but also suggest a number of ways that com-panies interested in manufacturing green products may bestcommunicate those efforts.




DATA COLLECTION INFORMATION

The second author collected data for studies 1, 2a, and 3using Qualtrics software and Amazon’s Mechanical Turkonline platform in June 2012, August 2012, and April 2013,respectively. Research assistants under the supervision ofthe university’s lab manager collected data for study 2b inJuly 2012 on the Charles River Esplanade in Boston duringa Fourth of July celebration. The second author collecteddata for study 4 using Qualtrics and the university’s onlinesurvey panel in January 2014. The first and second authorboth independently analyzed the data for studies 1, 2a, 2b,3, and 4.

APPENDIX A

EXPERIMENT 1 STIMULI

Control Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of R&D, Joe Smith, announces that the R&D teamhas been working for months on developing a new formulafor dishwashing soap. Extensive tests have revealed that thenew formula is better for the environment.

Joe Smith states, “This new dishwashing soap is signif-icantly better for the environment than competing brands.”Tests conducted by independent agencies confirm that thenew dish soap is indeed better for the environment than anyother brand in the marketplace.

Intended Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of R&D, Joe Smith, announces that the R&D teamhas been working for months on developing a new formulafor dishwashing soap that would be better for the environ-ment. Extensive tests have revealed that the new formula isbetter for the environment.

Joe Smith states, “As we initially intended, this newdishwashing soap is significantly better for the environmentthan competing brands.” Tests conducted by independentagencies confirm that the new dish soap is indeed better forthe environment than any other brand in the marketplace.

Unintended Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of R&D, Joe Smith, announces that the R&D teamhas been working for months on developing a new formulafor dishwashing soap. Extensive tests have revealed that the

new formula unexpectedly happens to be better for the en-vironment.

Joe Smith states, “As an unintended side effect, this newdishwashing soap is significantly better for the environmentthan competing brands.” Tests conducted by independentagencies confirm that the new dish soap is indeed better forthe environment than any other brand in the marketplace.

APPENDIX B

EXPERIMENT 2A STIMULI

Control Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Research and Development, Joe Smith, announcesthat the Research team has been working for months ondeveloping a new formula for an all-purpose householdcleaner. Extensive tests have revealed that the new formulais better for the environment.

Joe Smith states, “This new household cleaner is signif-icantly better for the environment than competing brands.”Tests conducted by independent agencies confirm that thenew household cleaner is indeed better for the environmentthan any other brand in the marketplace.

Intended Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Research and Development, Joe Smith, announcesthat the Research team has been working for months ondeveloping a new formula for an all-purpose householdcleaner that is better for the environment. Extensive testshave revealed that the new formula is better for the envi-ronment.

Joe Smith states, “As we initially intended, this newhousehold cleaner is significantly better for the environmentthan competing brands.” Tests conducted by independentagencies confirm that the new household cleaner is indeedbetter for the environment than any other brand in the mar-ketplace.

Unintended Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Research and Development, Joe Smith, announcesthat the Research team has been working for months ondeveloping a new formula for an all-purpose householdcleaner. Extensive tests have revealed that the new formulaunexpectedly happens to be better for the environment.

Joe Smith states, “As an unintended side effect, this newhousehold cleaner is significantly better for the environment




than competing brands.” Tests conducted by independentagencies confirm that the new household cleaner is indeedbetter for the environment than any other brand in the mar-ketplace.

Care-about-Both Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Research and Development, Joe Smith, announcesthat the Research team has been working for months ondeveloping a new formula for an all-purpose householdcleaner that is both better for the environment and is a goodhousehold cleaner. Extensive tests have revealed that thenew formula is better for the environment.

Joe Smith states, “As we initially intended, this newhousehold cleaner is significantly better for the environmentthan competing brands.” Tests conducted by independentagencies confirm that the new household cleaner is indeedbetter for the environment than any other brand in the mar-ketplace.

APPENDIX C

EXPERIMENT 2B STIMULI

Intended, Focal Attribute Unspecified Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Research and Development, Joe Smith, announcesthat the Research team has been working for months ondeveloping a new formula for drain cleaner (drain declog-ging solution) that would be better for the environment.Extensive tests have revealed that the new formula is betterfor the environment.

Joe Smith states, “As we initially intended, this new draincleaner is significantly better for the environment than com-peting brands.” Tests conducted by independent agenciesconfirm that the new drain cleaner is indeed better for theenvironment than any other brand in the marketplace.

Unintended, Focal Attribute UnspecifiedCondition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Research and Development, Joe Smith, announcesthat the Research team has been working for months ondeveloping a new formula for drain cleaner (drain declog-ging solution). Extensive tests have revealed that the newformula unexpectedly happens to be better for the environ-ment.

Joe Smith states, “As an unintended consequence, thisnew drain cleaner is significantly better for the environment

than competing brands.” Tests conducted by independentagencies confirm that the new drain cleaner is indeed betterfor the environment than any other brand in the marketplace.

Intended, Focal Attribute Specified Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Research and Development, Joe Smith, announcesthat the Research team has been working for months ondeveloping a new formula for drain cleaner (drain declog-ging solution) that would both have better viscosity and bebetter for the environment. Extensive tests have revealedthat the new formula does have better viscosity and is betterfor the environment.

Joe Smith states, “As we initially intended, this new draincleaner is significantly better for the environment than com-peting brands.” Tests conducted by independent agenciesconfirm that the new drain cleaner is indeed better for theenvironment than any other brand in the marketplace.

Unintended, Focal Attribute Specified Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Research and Development, Joe Smith, announcesthat the Research team has been working for months ondeveloping a new formula for drain cleaner (drain declog-ging solution) that would have better viscosity. Extensivetests have revealed that the new formula does have betterviscosity and unexpectedly also happens to be better for theenvironment.

Joe Smith states, “As an unintended consequence, thisnew drain cleaner is significantly better for the environmentthan competing brands.” Tests conducted by independentagencies confirm that the new drain cleaner is indeed betterfor the environment than any other brand in the marketplace.

APPENDIX D

EXPERIMENT 3 STIMULI

Intended, Integral Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of R&D, Joe Smith, announces that the research teamhas been working for months on developing a new formulafor an all-purpose cleaner that would be better for the en-vironment. Extensive tests have revealed that the new for-mula is better for the environment.

Joe Smith states, “As we initially intended, this new all-purpose cleaner is significantly better for the environmentcompared to products offered by competing brands.” Testsconducted by independent agencies confirm that the new




all-purpose cleaner is indeed better for the environment thanany other brand in the marketplace.

Unintended, Integral Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of R&D, Joe Smith, announces that the research teamhas been working for months on developing a new formulafor all-purpose cleaner. Extensive tests have revealed thatthe new formula unexpectedly happens to be better for theenvironment.

Joe Smith states, “As an unintended side effect, this newall-purpose cleaner is significantly better for the environmentcompared to products offered by competing brands.” Testsconducted by independent agencies confirm that the newall-purpose cleaner is indeed better for the environment thanany other brand in the marketplace.

Intended, Separate Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Human Resources, Joe Smith, announces that theHR team has been working for months on developing a new“fair trade” contract in its overseas factory, which manu-

factures its all-purpose cleaner. The new contract providesits foreign workers with a higher quality of life.

Joe Smith states, “As we intended, the new trade agree-ment provides overseas workers with a fair wage and higherquality of life in their home country.” Tests conducted byindependent agencies indicate that this new contract is in-deed better for the employees compared to companies whoemploy workers in similar factory jobs in the same country.

Unintended, Separate Condition

The Keyes Corporation manufactures household cleaningproducts such as detergents and cleaning sprays. In a meet-ing with the CEO of the Keyes Corporation, the Vice Pres-ident of Human Resources, Joe Smith, announces that theHR team has been working on negotiating a new contractin its overseas factory, which manufactures its all-purposecleaner. The local government now mandates a “fair trade”agreement. Therefore, while the Keyes Corporation did notintend to employ workers under the fair trade agreement,the new contract does have the benefit of proving its foreignworkers with a higher quality of life.

Joe Smith states, “As an unintended consequence, the newtrade agreement provides overseas workers with a fair wageand higher quality of life in their home country.” Tests con-ducted by independent agencies indicate that this new con-tract is indeed better for the employees compared to com-panies who employ workers in similar factory jobs in thesame country.

APPENDIX E

FIGURE E1

EXPERIMENT 4 STIMULI: INTENDED CONDITION (LEFT) AND UNINTENDED CONDITION (RIGHT)



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