Abstract
People are vain yet morally motivated. This contradiction captures the psychological tension felt by consumers, often caught between social motives and morality norms, participating in counterfeit luxury consumption (CLC). Despite the extensive research on the social motives underpinning CLC, little is known about how consumer morality interplays with social motives. Based on the functional theories of attitudes, this research advances the current knowledge by unveiling the interaction between the social-adjustive function of consumer attitudes and consumer morality and its impact on purchase intentions. By differentiating luxury products based on their public visibility-categorizing them as either social (high public visibility) or private (low public visibility)-this research reveals that consumers exhibit a preference for social over private counterfeit luxuries, driven by a more pronounced social-adjustive function in their attitudes. Notably, this research shows that consumer morality significantly attenuates purchase intentions for social counterfeit luxury through its impact on the social-adjustive function, whereas its effect on the intentions for private one is less prominent. Furthermore, by employing transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to manipulate consumer morality, the role of moral emotions is shown to influence consumer morality and subsequent behaviors. This research enriches our comprehension of morality's role in affecting consumers' social motives in the CLC context and suggests managers and regulators consider product type when applying moral education to counteract CLC.