TORONTO - Just being around green products can make us behave more altruistically, says a new research. But buying those same products can have the opposite effect.

Researchers found that buying green can lead people to behave less altruisticly, and can even make them more likely to steal and lie than after buying conventional products.

Buying products that claim to be made with low environmental impact can set up moral credentials in people’s minds that give licence to selfish or questionable behaviour.

This was not done to point a finger at consumers who buy green products. The message is bigger, says Nina Mazar, marketing professor at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and a self-admitted green consumer.

At the end of the day, if we do one moral thing, it doesn’t necessarily mean we will be morally better in other things as well.

Mazar, along with her co-author Chen-Bo Zhong, professor of organisational behaviour at the Rotman School, conducted three experiments.

The first found that people perceived green consumers to be more cooperative, altruistic and ethical than those who purchased conventional products.

The second experiment showed that participants merely exposed to products from a green store shared more money in a subsequent experimental game, but those who actually made purchases in that store shared less.

The final experiment revealed that participants who bought items in the green store showed evidence of lying and stealing money in a subsequent lab game.

The study is slated for publication in Psychological Science.