Empathy and moral judgment as psychological mechanisms of socially oriented consumption: evidence from an emerging economy.

Introduction: Understanding how individuals translate concern for others into ethically oriented behavior remains a central challenge in moral and social psychology. This study examines whether empathy is associated with socially oriented consumption decisions and whether this relationship is statistically indirect through moral judgment as a core evaluative process. Drawing on social cognition and moral psychology, empathy is conceptualized as a higher-order psychological construct comprising cognitive and affective dimensions, whereas moral judgment refers to individuals' evaluative assessments of fairness, responsibility, and harm in consumption contexts. Methods: The proposed model was tested using survey data from 1,000 adult urban consumers in Ecuador and analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results: The results show that empathy is positively associated with moral judgment, and that moral judgment is positively associated with socially oriented consumption decisions. Empathy is also positively associated with socially oriented consumption decisions. The mediation analysis indicates a pattern consistent with partial complementary mediation, suggesting that moral judgment constitutes an important evaluative pathway linking empathy and socially oriented consumption decisions. The model shows moderate-to-substantial explanatory power and robust measurement properties. Discussion: These findings contribute to moral and social psychology by clarifying how cognitive and affective empathy are jointly associated with moral judgment and socially oriented consumption decisions in everyday consumption contexts. By providing large-scale empirical evidence from Ecuador, the study broadens the contextual basis of existing psychological research beyond predominantly Western settings and highlights the relevance of integrating affective and evaluative processes in the study of socially embedded consumer behavior.