Moral Shame Talks 3: Clashing Behaviour

Radio ArtEZ

Moral Shame Talks is a podcast series of three episodes that explores the complexities of consumers’ moral shame in the context of the sustainability debate within the fashion industry. By tackling moral shame –a form of shame that consumers experience in their consumer behaviour while knowing they are not making sustainable choices – stories can be told about the complexity and systemics of the fashion industry and the sustainability debate in it. In the podcast series Lindy Boerman, finals student of the ArtEZ Master Fashion Strategy, collects different ideas, critical perspectives and personal thoughts. By including personal stories consumers have about moral shame and reflecting on this together with people from various professional background and with various perspectives she gives meaning to, and places moral shame in the contemporary context.

In this episode, Christine (Cimpian, MA Behavioural Science, RU) and Lindy discuss moral shame from a behavioural science point of view. They take a look at what is crucial to moral shame: a friction between the consumers’ sustainability aspirations and ambitions and their actual behaviour. Christine and Lindy investigate what plays an important role in the consumer behaviour that leads to moral shame.

Sources Christine mentions

Interested in temporal discounting in relation to sustainability? Read (1) Green, L. & Myerson, J., 2004. A discounting framework for choice with delayed and probabilistic rewards. Psychological bulletin. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1382186/ and (2) Odum, A.L., 2011. Delay discounting: I'm a k, you're a k. Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3213005/

Want to read more about implementation intentions? See: Gollwizter, P.M., 1999. Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), pp.493–503.

On consumers & agency: Hamilton, C., 2009. Consumerism, self-creation and prospects for a new ecological consciousness. Journal of Cleaner Production. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652609003023?casa_token=5e42BtTFvmYAAAAA%3AFa6lh4OPpHDPvVrl7Xasl2ycHik2l9iihqjS9pNwnDMA64LaEOiJFfNLuEu2JfxnwmQd5qEfXBB [Accessed May 19, 2021].

Interested in some more sources?

McNeill, L. & Moore, R., 2015. Sustainable fashion consumption and the fast fashion conundrum: fashionable consumers and attitudes to sustainability in clothing choice. Wiley Online Library. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijcs.12169 [Accessed May 21, 2021].

Want to read more on a sustainability on an individual level: Pappas, E.C., 2013. Individual sustainability: Preliminary research. IEEE Xplore. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6685115 [Accessed May 21, 2021].

Want to know more about cognitive dissonance? Please see: Thøgersen, J., 2003. A cognitive dissonance interpretation of consistencies and inconsistencies in environmentally responsible behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494403000392 [Accessed May 21, 2021].

Sources Lindy mentions

Read further about affective dissonance in: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1362704X.2019.1676506

Read more about the three degrees of influence, please read this article: https://decorrespondent.nl/11718/ja-het-is-allemaal-de-schuld-van-shell-klm-en-het-systeem-maar-zullen-we-het-nu-eens-overjouhebben/450498510-0abb8d69

More information on sustainable sensoriality, please read this article: Living-With and Dying-With

Thoughts on the Affective Matter of Food and Fashion in https://apria.artez.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/APRIA-Issue-1-Print-Out-V12.pdf

Read more about the supermarket of identities in Dissolving the Ego of Fashion by Daniëlle Bruggeman. https://artezpress.artez.nl/nl/boeken/dissolving-the-ego-of-fashion-2/

Want to read some more on the Affect theory?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/25/affect-theory-and-the-newage-of-anxiety

Radio ArtEZ is produced by Ondercast for Studium Generale ArtEZ. Studium Generale curator for this series: Catelijne de Muijnck