Behavioral Economic Research Concerning Ethical...

Method Embarking upon this study, I sought a premise of behavioral economic research concerning ethical consumerism and connections to psychology. Through basic search engines and the citations of other articles, a comprehensive set of studies and articles was compiled to identify and frame the research question. As a study focusing primarily on a marketing and psychological relationship, a primarily correlational research design was employed with a local survey to evaluate any behavioral connections and contribute to the present discussion; the use of a mixed research method allowed the study to gauge the participants’ perspectives more accurately and openly while maintaining a statistical basis. Following a similar format to the survey†¦show more content†¦On the other hand, socio-economic status, has yielded limited positive correlation with fair trade consumerism, so the survey captured the views of participants in most fields of work, with no field representing a majority, lending a reasonable control for socio-economic status. A total of 92 respondents participated in the survey, 63% female and 37% male. As the population of interest was American consumers, I could not create an entirely representative sample of the population, but the aforementioned diversity provides a reasonable idea of this sample. The two fundamental questions in the survey were (Question one), â€Å"How familiar are you with the concept of fair trade?† to gauge fair trade awareness, and (Question two), â€Å"How frequently do you purchase or attempt to purchase fair trade products?† to gauge fair trade consumption. These questions, with four and five answer choices, respectively, provided incremental responses. The answer choices for the former question ranged from, â€Å"I have never heard of fair trade† to â€Å"Very familiar; I often hear about or encounter fair trade products or related information,† while the answer choices to the latter question ranged from â€Å"I have never purposefully bought a fair trade product,† to â€Å"Anytime I shop; I purposefully seek out fair trade products in everything I buy.† The information from this survey parallels similar studies in the field to contribute a deeper understanding of personality in