Influence of Ethical Sensitivity and Spiritual Quotient on Socially Responsible

Consumption Behaviour
Dr. R. Kamala Saranya, Assistant Professor, School of Management Studies, SRM Arts
and Science College, Kattankulathur, Chennai
Email: saranmallika2088@gmail.com; Contact No: 9629038350 / 9994094200
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Abstract:
Growing consumerist lifestyle has thrown upon several challenges to the governments
around the globe. Environmental threats, health issues, materialism, income inequalities and
social and political unrest are few among the direct and indirect consequences of lack of
responsible consumption behaviour of people. The current study aims to check out the
possible influence of spiritual quotient and ethical sensitivity on socially responsible
consumption behaviour. This study was carried on a sample of 128 respondents residing in
and around Chennai city using non-probability sampling method. Multiple regression
analysis was applied to answer the research questions. The results revealed that socially
responsible consumption behaviour can be predicted by both spiritual quotient and ethical
sensitivity.
Keywords: Spiritual Quotient, Ethical Sensitivity, SCRB, Multiple Regression Analysis
Introduction:
A day is not so far away when people would depend on an electronic gadget even to scratch
their skin. An average European citizen uses about four times more resources than one in
Africa and three times more than one in Asia, but half of that in the Unites States, Canada or
Australia. It is estimated that the generation of waste electrical and electronic equipment will
increase by roughly 11 % between 2008 and 2014 across the EU-27 countries, Norway and
Switzerland, mainly due to rapid technological advancement accompanied by reduced prices
(European Environment Agency, 2011). Every year it was estimated that 1.3 billion tons of
solid waste is collected worldwide. This figure is expected to increase to 2.2 billion tons by
2025, with almost all of the increase from developing countries (UNEP New Centre, 2013).
All these facts convey nothing but one thing that world is witnessing growing consumerist
culture among people and credit should be given to marketing and technology. The definition
and the way in which people derive happiness has changed as people measure happiness in
terms of material possession and feel happiness when they consume more than their
neighbours. Knowingly or unknowingly this materialistic culture and consumerist life style of
people have led to most of the environmental and social evils. The panacea to all the
problems and threats is to adopt socially responsible consumption behaviour. In this
connection, exploring the role of spiritual quotient and ethical sensitivity in driving people
towards socially responsible consumption behaviour is of paramount importance.
Literature Review:
Spiritual Intelligence:
Zohar & Marshall (2001) defined spiritual intelligence (spiritual quotient) as, “the intellectual
ability to question why we are here and to be creative in our pursuit of answers. Thus,
spiritual intelligence involves the cognitive processes resulting in both social modifications
and consciousness transformations”. Spiritual quotient is human beings intelligence or
capacity to link them closer to spiritual characteristics and manifestations such as
compassion, meaning and purpose, consciousness (self awareness), vision and values
(Biberman & McKeage, 2002). Spiritual intelligence facilitates dialog between mind and
body, between reason and emotion. “If we know how to rely on our SQ we shall become less
fearful, more accustomed to relying on ourselves, more willing to face the difficult and the
uncomfortable, and more ready to live at the edge (Zohar, D. & Marshall, I. 2000). SQ gives
us the ability to discriminate. It gives us our moral sense, our ability to temper rigid rules
with understanding and compassion and an equal ability to see when compassion and under-
standing have their limits. We use Spiritual Quotient to battle with questions of good and evil
and to envision unrealized possibilities-to dream, to aspire, to raise ourselves (ibid). Studies
explored SQ with many aspects like effective leadership, emotional quotient, occupational
stress, social adjustment and etc., (Kumar, T. & Pragadeeswaran, S. 2011 and Dhingra, R.,
Manhas, S. & Thakur, N. 2005) but not much has been reported on its relevance towards
socially responsible consumption behaviour.
Ethical Sensitivity:
Narvaez et. al, (2001) defines ethical sensitivity as “an empathic interpretation of situation in
determining who is involved, what actions to take and what possible reactions/ outcomes
might arise”. Ethical sensitivity is the awareness of how our actions affect other people. It
involves being aware of the different possible lines of action and how each line of action
could affect the parties involved (including oneself) - Muriel Bebeau and her colleagues
(1999). Although significant amount of research work interrogated consumers ’ ethical
sensitivity and its relevance in buying intentions/behaviour, findings were so vague (Cherrier,
2005). Hines and Ames (2000) argued that ethical sensitivity grows with ones ’ age and
females are more ethically sensitive when compared to their male counterparts (Parker,
2002). Ethical sensitivity seems to increase as ones’ wealth increases (Barnett et al., 2005)
and people with lower education background seem to be more ethically sensitive (Dickson,
2005). De Pelsmacker et al., 2005 and O’Fallon and Butterfield, 2005 argued that
demographic variables are poor forecaster of ethical sensitivity as many researchers found no
relationship exists between them. Moral maturity found to influence consumption behaviour
(Rest, 1986) and consumption pattern of individuals (McDevitt et.al, 2007).
Socially responsible consumption behavior:
Antil & Bennett (1979) defined socially responsible consumption behaviour as “those
consumer behaviour and purchase decisions which are related to environmental and resource-
related problems and are motivated not only by a desire to satisfy personal needs but also by
a concern for welfare of society in general. Roberts (1993) defined the socially responsible
consumer as “one who purchases products and services perceived to have a positive (or less
negative) influence on the environment or who patronizes businesses that attempt to effect
related positive social change”. Mohr, Webb and Harris (2001) defined socially responsible
consumer behavior (SRCB) as “the behavior of a consumer who bases his or her acquisition,
usage, and disposition of products and services on a desire to minimize or eliminate any
destructive or harmful effects and to maximize the long-term beneficial impact on society ”.
Studies explored the possible correlation between demographic variables and socially
responsible consumption behaviour ended up revealing mixed results. The relationship
between age and socially responsible consumption is significant & positive in few studies
(Samdahl & Robertson, 1989 and Roberts, 1996) but the same is not significant (McEvoy,
1972, Kennear et al., 1974 and Roper, 1990; 1992) even negative (Tognacci et al., 1972,
Anderson et al., 1974,Van Liere and Dunlap, 1981 and Zimmer et al., 1994) in other studies.
Findings of studies examined gender and socially responsible / green consumption behaviour
are also vague (Tognacci et al., 1972, Brooker, 1976, Arbuthnot, 1977 and Samdahl &
Robertson, 1989 and Stern et al., 1993).When it comes to education, literature highlights the
fact that education clearly have a positive relationship with socially responsible consumption
(Tognacci et al., 1972, McEvoy, 1972, Anderson et al., 1974, Murphy et al., 1978, Leonard-
Barton, 1981, Van Liere & Dunlap, 1981, Aaker & Bagozzi, 1982, Roper, 1990; 1992,
Schwartz & Miller, 1991, Zimmer et al., 1994 and Roberts, 1996). Shanthi, P. &
Thiyagarajan, S. (2013) found that age and education seems to have an impact on socially
responsible advertisements As far as income has concerned few studies found negative
relationship with social responsibility and environmental issues (Samdahl & Robertson,
1989; Roberts, 1996) but many found the relationship positive (McEvoy, 1972, Kinnear et al.,
1974, Roper, 1990, 1992 and Zimmer et al., 1994). Based on the review it was considered
that influence of spiritual quotient and ethical sensitivity on socially responsible consumption
behaviour is a logical assumption and the present study proceeded to validate the same with
some empirical evidences.
Research Gap:
Based on the review it was identified that not much research work has investigated the
possible influence of spiritual quotient and ethical sensitivity on socially responsible
consumption behaviour. Hence the study attempted to bridge the gap by looking into the
relevance of spiritual intelligence and ethical sensitivity on socially responsible consumption
behaviour.
Methodology:
Questionnaire Design & Method of Data collection:
A structured questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The First part of the
questionnaire collects demographic information of the respondents, second part measures
ethical sensitivity, third part assesses spiritual quotient and the last part quantifies the socially
responsible consumption behaviour of the respondents. Data were collected form 140
respondents in and around Chennai using a non probability sampling method out of which
only 128 responses found complete and fit for the study. The Sample respondents comprise
of 58 males and 70 females and their mean age is 29. Majority of them are postgraduates and
belong to the monthly family income category between Rs 30,001 – 45000.
Measurement of Variables:
The variables used in the study are ethical sensitivity, spiritual quotient and socially
responsible consumption behaviour. The tools used to measure those variables are Ethical
Sensitivity Scale Questionnaire (Narvaez, 2001), Spiritual Quotient Scale (Chopra, 2002) and
Socially Responsible Consumption Behaviour (Antil, J.H & Bennett. P.D. 1979). Pilot study
was done on 43 respondents and the results were subjected to Cronbach's alpha reliability test
and the values of ethical sensitivity, spiritual quotient and socially responsible consumption
behaviour scales are 0.795, 0.801 and 0.854 respectively which confirms the internal
consistency of the scales. Multiple regression analysis was applied to explore the influence of
respondents’ ethical sensitivity & spiritual quotient on their socially responsible consumption
behaviour
Findings & Discussions:
An attempt to group the respondents into High/Low categories based on median values was
made and the results were presented in Table 1.
 Table 1
Descriptive statistics
Respondents Group Frequency Percentage Mean Std. Deviation
High Ethical Sensitive Group 65 50.8 81.14 6.31
Low Ethical Sensitive Group 63 49.2 61.17 11.41
Total 128 100.0 71.00 13.62
High Spiritual Quotient Group 72 56.3 56.41 4.16
Low Spiritual Quotient Group 56 43.7 40.76 8.93
Total 128 100.0 47.61 10.62
High SRCB Group 64 50.0 139.81 10.77
Low SRCB Group 64 50.0 103.45 19.20
Total 128 100.0 121.63 23.95

From Table 1, it can be seen that the majority of the respondents belong to high spiritual
quotient and ethically sensitive groups and exactly half a percentage of sample respondents
belong to high socially responsible consumption group. This phenomenon may be attributed
to the nature of the demographic profile of the respondents as majority of them were post
graduates and above 29 years. Respondents in high spiritual quotient, ethically sensitive and
SCRB groups are having relatively higher mean scores with lesser standard deviation values
indicates consistency in their responses. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to see
the influence of ethical sensitivity and spiritual quotient on socially responsible consumption
behaviour.
Table 2: Model Summary
Model R R Adjusted R Standard Error of Durbin-
Square Square Estimate Watson
1 0.847 0.717 0.713 12.833 1.691

Table 3
ANOVA
Model Sum of Squares df Mean F sig.
Square
Regression 52259.306 2 26129.653
Residual 20588.436 125 164.707 158.643 0.000a
Total 72847.742 127
a
Predictors: (Constant), Ethical Sensitivity, Spiritual Quotient
 Table 4
Influence of Spiritual Quotient and Ethical Sensitivity on Socially Responsible
Consumption Behaviour

Model Unstandardised Standardised Collinearity

Coefficients Coefficients Statistics
t sig.
B Std. Beta Tolerance VIF
Error
(Constant) 22.095 6.108 3.617 0.000
Spiritual Quotient 1.475 .166 .654 8.891 0.000 0.418 2.394
Ethical Sensitivity 0.413 .129 .235 3.191 0.002 0.418 2.394
Dependent Variable: Socially responsible Consumption Behaviour

From Table 2 – 4, it can be said that the model has a goodness of fit for multiple regression
analysis and the linear combination of spiritual quotient and ethical sensitivity scores was
significantly related to socially responsible consumption behaviour, F(2,125) = 158.643,
p<0.001. The multiple correlation coefficient is 0.85, indicating that approximately 72% of
the variance of the respondents’ socially responsible consumption behaviour can be accounted
for by the linear combination of spiritual quotient and ethical sensitivity scores. There is no
auto correlation of error terms as Durbin-Watson d = 1.691 which is within the acceptable
range (1.5 - 2.5) and the problem of multicollinearity of independent variables is not there as
the values of Tolerance and Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) are within the controllable limits
(Less than 4 and more than .04). From all these It could be said that spiritual quotient and
ethical sensitivity are significantly influence socially responsible consumption behaviour of
the respondents in the order of their influence. To be a responsible citizen one need not have
to construct a heaven on earth but to have a sense of spirituality and ethics as spiritual
intelligence coupled with ethical sensitivity seems to be guiding consumption behaviour of
individuals in such a way it benefits not only them but the society at large.
Conclusions:
The study attempted to validate the logical assumption of influence of spiritual quotient and
ethical sensitivity on socially responsible consumption behaviour of the respondents and
ended up supporting the same. India is a country which is known for its divine spirituality
and culture. People of this country have their roots strongly tied to their spiritual and cultural
norms and therefore it is not surprising that majority of the respondents are found to have
high spiritual intelligence. Spirituality and ethics are the two strong drives which keep the
country secular and the study identified the same which encourage responsive consumption.
Hence it is not so tough for Indians to adopt socially responsible consumption behaviour as
they already have the sense of spirituality and ethics in them and the only job needs to be
done is to recognise the presence of spirituality and ethics in them and realise the necessity
to act upon responsively. By doing so India could lead the world for a better earth to rejoice
with.
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