Effects of Moral Cognitions and Consumer Emotions on Shoplifting Intentions Barry J. Babin and Laurie A. Babin University of Southern Mississippi zyxw ABSTRACT Empirical results verify the notion that emotions are important in explaining the aberrant consumer act of shoplifting.Age appears to moderate the relative effect of beliefs and emotions in a shoplifting scenario. Although adult consumers’ moral beliefs provide more explanatory power in their shoplifting decision calculus, emotions are more important in explaining adolescent shoplifting behavior. Specifically,adults’ behavioral intentions to shoplift are affected by their moral beliefs, with attitude toward the act of shoplifting serving as a partial mediator of these effects. College-aged respondents are largely influenced by beliefs concerning the moral equity of shoplifting. In contrast, both beliefs and emotions influence adolescents significantly, with emotions, specifically fear and power, having a greater impact. zyxw 01996 John Wiley zyxw & Sons, Inc. Fullerton and Punj zyxwv (1993, p. 570) define aberrant consumer behavior as “behavior in exchange settings which violates the generally ac- cepted norms of conduct in such situations and which is therefore held in disrepute by marketers and by most consumers.” Example behav- iors include credit misuse and abuse, purchase of illegal products, mis- use of products, fraudulent merchandise returns or requests for Psychology & Marketing zyxwvu 0 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Vol. 13(8)785-802 (December 1996) CCC 0742-6046/96/08785-18 785