15.06.2021

From July 1 the NaKosiR project starts with cooperation of the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV). Prof. Dr. Stefan Hoffmann (Department of Marketing, CAU Kiel), Prof. Dr. Ludger Heidbrink (Department of Practical Philosophy, CAU Kiel), Dr. Nils Christian Hoffmann (Department of Marketing, CAU Kiel) and Dr. Sebastian Müller (Cologne center for Ethics, Rights, Economics, and Social Sciences of Health, Universität Köln) are involved in the project.

The NaKosiR project investigates the extent to which conflicting demands on social roles and individual normative attitudes can lead to complex and difficult-to-resolve dilemmas in consumer decisions that may ultimately result in exclusion from social participation in certain areas.We will conduct a systematic literature review to develop a taxonomy in which everyday conflicts between lived social roles and individual normative attitudes of consumers will be depicted. This taxonomy will be transformed into consumption dilemmas that exemplify complex consumption scenarios in which the demands made on, and the actual realities within social roles conflict with individual normative attitudes towards the sustainability of consumers. The complexity of everyday consumption is examined and analyzed in an experimental study using the Defining-Issues-Tests (DIT) developed by Lawrence Kohlberg and James Rest. Based on Kohlberg's model of cognitive moral development, the DIT can be used to quantify the moral judgment of consumers. The aim of the first study is to clarify and quantify the conflicts between normative attitudes and social roles, before these conflicts are investigated in greater depth in a second quantitative survey in the second step of the project. In addition, the second survey will provide concrete recommendations for action to help consumers resolve the ubiquitous dilemmas of consumption in everyday life and thus translate their normative attitudes into everyday consumption and express them through action. Only in this way are consumers able to participate in the complex world of consumption through the possibility and capability of expressing their attitudes.

(Ein Post von der Professur für Marketing)