Overview

What is the cognitive toolkit that determines how consumers view firms and brands? Julian De Freitas approaches this question through the case study of ethical intelligence, the cognitive tools that people need in order to coordinate in social life, as when using the same products (aka network externalities), buying beers for a party that others will like, or conforming to community standards or being viewed as popular. He studies (§1) how the logic of coordination explains consumer’s moral attitudes toward companies, such as whether they think a company is charitable or are morally outraged by it, and (§2) how ethical considerations pervade even the more basic concepts that consumers use to evaluate companies, as when deciding whether a company is being authentic or doing meaningful work. He approaches these questions using various methods from experimental psychology and machine learning, while drawing on theoretical insights from game theory, evolutionary biology, and philosophy.