The influence of social belonging and creativity on the immoral consumption behaviors of new adolescents: A cross-cultural study of 16–24 year olds

Why do adolescents engage in immoral consumer behavior, like changing a price or lying for a discount? Based on the theory of the need for social belonging, a study of 1,326 Brazilian, Chinese, American, and French adolescents aged 16–24 demonstrates the coexistence of two opposing relationships between belonging to a peer group and judgment of immoral consumption behavior: a direct relationship in which adolescents who feel most integrated are those whose judgment is the most severe, but also an indirect relationship, in which social belonging increases creative self-efficacy, which in turn makes the subject more forgiving of immoral behavior. The respective weights of direct and indirect paths vary with national culture, here the country of residence, and the value of individualism/collectivism. In Brazil and China, which have collectivist cultures, the direct path dominates. In the United States and France, which are more individualistic, the path is indirect.