Unethical behavior imposes enormous costs on society and organizations (Ayal et al., 2015). It is necessary to delve into its psychological underpinnings to provide empirical support for curbing unethical behavior. Generally, people overestimate the happiness resulting from the desired event, presenting a bias in affective forecasting (Wilson & Gilbert, 2005). This bias in happiness estimation can result in unethical behavior (Noval, 2016). Thus, people’s motivation to pursue happiness should influence their tendency to engage in unethical behaviors. However, studies on unethical behavior have not been received enough attention regarding its relationship with the pursuit of happiness. Given that people’s morality and happiness are closely related (Phillips et al., 2017), those with different happiness orientations are likely to engage in unethical behavior because of pursuing happiness wrongly. In the current research, the researchers propose and examine the possibility that the pursuit of hedonic happiness (compared with eudaimonic happiness) will lead people to make more unethical behavioral decisions. The study aims to address three main questions: Does the pursuit of hedonic happiness relate to unethical behavior? If so, what is the underlying psychological process of the relationship? What is the boundary condition of this effect?

The Pursuit of Happiness and Unethical Behavior

In both philosophical tradition and current psychological research, it is generally believed that happiness can be divided into two perspectives: hedonia and eudaimonia (Huta & Waterman, 2014; Ryan & Deci, 2001). The hedonic view holds that happiness consists of more pleasure and less pain, while the eudaimonic view holds that happiness lies primarily in the actualization of human potential (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Most happiness studies consider it as a consequence variable to examine its influencing factors. However, as the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human motivation (Kesebir & Diener, 2008), researchers of happiness orientation now investigate different happiness-seeking as its antecedents (Huta & Ryan, 2010; Peterson et al., 2005). Corresponding to the two classic views of happiness, Huta and Ryan (2010) proposed that people’s motives in their activities can be divided into two happiness orientations: hedonic orientation (seeking pleasure and comfort) and eudaimonic orientation (seeking purpose and developing the best of self). Generally speaking, both happiness motives can increase people’s happiness, and a combination of them is needed for an optimal existence (Huta, 2016a, 2016b).

However, several recent studies have begun to focus on the dark side of the pursuit of happiness, with some findings asserting that valuing happiness may make people less happy (Mauss et al., 2011) and damage their connections with others, making people feel lonely (Mauss et al., 2012). Although this negative effect of valuing happiness may be unique to Western culture (Ford et al., 2015), consistent findings from this trend have indicated that the more people pursue happiness, the less likely they are to get it (for a review, see Gruber et al., 2011). Extant research on the dark side of happiness has largely been based on its hedonic view, mainly focusing on affect experience and ignoring other meanings of happiness. Different happiness orientation goals may have different consequences. Theoretically, eudaimonia is a higher good than hedonia because it is the highest path to personal fulfillment (Huta, 2016a), and hedonia may have a hidden dark side to human well-being. Although the excessive pursuit of both hedonia and eudaimonia may have a negative consequence (Huta, 2016b), the hedonic goals are more likely than the eudaimonic goals to bring maladaptive side effects, such as unethical behaviors. While there have been many studies concerning the dark side of happiness pursuit (Gruber et al., 2011), there is little empirical research regarding unethical behavior as a possible (maladaptive) side effect of happiness pursuit. The current study proposes that hedonic motives are more likely to be the underlying dark side of the pursuit of happiness, as they may lead to unethical behavior under certain circumstances.

The relationship between hedonic motives and unethical behavior can be explained as ends and means (Fowers et al., 2010; Kruglanski et al., 2002, 2018). First, according to the goal system theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002), the goal system consists of mental representations of interrelated goals and means. The cognitive properties of the goal system determine the motivational properties. Therefore, the relationship between different goals of happiness and the corresponding means used influence people’s behavioral motivation. Second, the pursuit of hedonia and eudaimonia is associated with different goal-pursuit patterns. Hedonic orientation is associated with instrumental goals, in which the end is separated from the means. The eudaimonia orientation corresponds to constitutive goals, in which its means and ends are inseparable (Fowers et al., 2010). If a person has an instrumental goal, they will only care about the goal itself, and the means to achieve the goal will often be considered only for efficiency. For example, if wealth is a person’s goal, he can get it through hard work, by winning a lottery, or by unethical behavior such as cheating or fraud. Accordingly, more hedonic instrumental goal orientations are more likely to be associated with unethical behavior. Third, the misguided pursuit of happiness, coupled with extrinsic instrumental goals, leads people to engage in immoral behaviors. Goal-setting theory suggests that specific, difficult goals increase performance (Locke & Latham, 2002), but research has also found that some specific goal setting leads individuals to behave unethically (Ordóñez & Welsh, 2015; Schweitzer et al., 2004). Hedonic orientation may lead people to set more specific goals and to focus on the gap between themselves and those goals. Individuals may have a higher propensity to engage in unethical behavior as a result of pursuing these goals. Reducing the expected emotional impact of the desired outcome could effectively decrease the tendency to engage in unethical behavior (Noval, 2016). According to a recent study, hedonic orientation and eudaimonic orientations map onto different scopes of concern (Pearce et al., 2020). Hedonic orientation focuses more narrowly on “me, now, and tangible”, while eudaimonic orientation focuses more broadly on “we, future, and wider implications”. This may propel people with high hedonia orientation to be more concerned with extrinsic goals such as money and material things, and less concerned with their impact on others. Therefore, people with high hedonic motives are more likely to engage in unethical behavior than those with high eudaimonic motives because they have stronger instrumental goals, their pursuit of specific goals is misguided, and narrower concerns on the self.

  • Hypothesis 1: Hedonic motives positively correlate with unethical behavior.

  • Hypothesis 2: Eudaimonic motives negatively correlate with unethical behavior.

The Mediation Role of Materialism

Hedonic orientation or motives may be associated with unethical behavior through certain mechanisms. Materialism is one such a mediating mechanism examined in this study. Materialism can be viewed as a dispositional individual-difference variable, defined as “the importance a person places on possessions and their acquisition in achieving major life goals or desired end states.” (Richins & Dawson, 1992). Materialism reflects the degree of a person’s perception of the importance of acquiring money and possessions for happiness, although empirical evidence has shown that high materialism is associated with lower happiness level (Kasser et al., 2014). Both acquisitions and possessions belong to extrinsic goals (Deci & Ryan, 2000); hence, we regard materialism as a manifestation of the extrinsic goal orientation in the pursuit of happiness. Highly materialistic people tend to associate material possessions with happiness (Millar & Thomas, 2009). Thus, they are more likely to obtain their desired happiness through extrinsic material acquisition or consumption.

In the pursuit of happiness goal setting, happiness orientation represents the direction of happiness, which can be a hedonic orientation or eudaimonic orientation. However, materialism represents a value or goal that creates the belief that wealth and possessions bring happiness, a relatively lower-level goal. In a goal system, low-level goals can be used to achieve high-level goals (Fishbach & Ferguson, 2007). According to the goal systems theory, means that are more strongly linked to a specific goal are more likely to be selected, and for particularly important goals, instrumental means are more likely to be selected (Kruglanski et al., 2002). For those who pursue hedonic happiness, wealth or money is more likely to be seen as a prominent means of happiness. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that people with high hedonic motives will be attentive to extrinsic goals such as money, possessions, and luxury goods, eventually forming materialistic values or goals. However, no research has explored the relationship between hedonic orientation and materialism based on the literature survey. In this study, hedonic orientation is considered as the antecedent variable of materialism, and materialism is considered as the manifestation of adopting extrinsic goals as a means to obtain happiness. Here, the relationship between hedonic orientation and materialism is examined.

While few studies have examined the relationship between happiness orientation and materialism, substantial evidence indicates that materialism is linked with a series of negative behavioral outcomes (for a comprehensive review, see Kasser, 2016), such as less organizational citizenship behavior and more interpersonal deviant behaviors (Deckop et al., 2015). Money conception priming studies also show that primed individuals with money were more likely to cheat (Gino & Mogilner, 2014). Even mere exposure to money can induce people to harbor unethical intentions and engage in those behaviors (Kouchaki et al., 2013). Sheldon et al. (2018) confirm that the combination of extrinsic materialistic goals and extrinsic motivations is most likely to lead to immoral behavior. Liang et al. (2016) found that materialism led to corrupt intentions, and that reducing it through experimental manipulation can reduce such intentions. Based on the literature review, it is logical to deduce that materialism might mediate the relationship between hedonic motives and unethical behavior.

  • Hypothesis 3: Materialism will mediate the relation between hedonic motives (eudaimonic motives) and unethical behavior.

The Moderation Role of Self-Control

The study further explores the potential boundary conditions for when hedonic pursuits lead to unethical behavior, as the relationship between hedonic motives and unethical behavior may be moderated by various factors, especially an individual’s self-control. Self-control is associated with a range of behaviors, and people with high self-control are better at performing desired behaviors and inhibiting undesired behavior than people with low self-control (de Ridder et al., 2012). According to the general theory of crime, low self-control could tempt individuals to commit criminal acts (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990). Higher self-control can make people better adjust, exhibit fewer problematic behaviors, and appropriate emotional responses (Tangney et al., 2004). In many cases, preventing individuals from unethical behaviors requires them to overcome temptation; thus, self-control may play an important role in resisting unethical behavior (Gino et al., 2011; Mead et al., 2009).

Research on self-control failure holds that self-control resources are limited, and when they resources are exhausted, it will lead to poor performance on subsequent self-control tasks (Baumeister et al., 2007). Experimental studies confirm that when self-control in people is depleted, they behave unethically. Mead et al. (2009) found that when participants’ capacity to exert self-control was depleted, they engaged in more dishonest behavior in later tasks. Gino et al. (2011) showed similar findings that participants who lacked self-control resources cheated more on problem-solving tasks, but those with high moral identity were less affected by self-control. In addition to expending self-control resources to curb the urge to behave unethically, people with high self-control traits are likely to avoid tempting targets (Ent et al., 2015). These findings suggest that whether people behave unethically depends on whether their self-control overrides unethical impulses. Participants with low levels of self-control and high materialism find it difficult to disengage from their desire for unethical behavior. Lack of control over these impulses translates into unethical behaviors. However, individuals with high self-control successfully inhibit these impulses behaving with moral standards.

Thus, the current study identifies personal self-control as an individual trait, accounting for individual differences in unethical behavior. People with high levels of self-control may be better at curbing their intention to engage in unethical behavior. This study expects that the conditional indirect effects of hedonic motives in predicting unethical behavior via materialism will be stronger for those with low as opposed to high levels of self-control. Specifically, participants with high self-control are less likely to engage in unethical behavior, even if they have a high hedonic orientation or materialism. However, people with low self-control may seek to satisfy their desires through immoral means when they have highly hedonic or materialistic desires. As such, this study examines self-control as a critical moderator in determining the relationship between hedonic orientation, materialism and unethical behavior.

  • Hypothesis 4: Self-control will moderate the relation between hedonic motives, materialism and unethical behavior.

Present Study

As there has been no research investigating the relationship between happiness orientation and unethical behavior, this study aims to fill this gap by examining this relationship. These hypotheses are tested by measuring happiness orientation, materialism and unethical behavior in a sample of college students. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, we tested whether the pursuit of happiness from the hedonic motives (compared with eudaimonic motives) would predict participants’ unethical behavior. Second, materialism was treated as a mediator in the relationship between hedonic motives (eudaimonic motives) and unethical behavior. Finally, the study tested self-control as a moderator in the relationship between hedonic motives, materialism, and unethical behavior. Figure 1 depicts the theoretical model.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The assumed theory model

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Method

Participants

The study involved 367 participants, all of whom were Chinese. Thirty-six participants were excluded because they did not pass attention monitoring question. The final sample consisted of 331 participants (Mage = 20.0, SD = 1.79), of whom 229 were female (69.2%, Mage = 20.0, SD = 1.81). Most of the subjects were recruited in a psychology class at a normal university, while a few were recruited by researchers on social media. The researchers did not give participants a monetary reward; Student participants could receive credit for participating in the research.

Measures

Happiness Orientation

The Hedonic and Eudaimonic Motives for Activities Revised Scale (HEMA-R, Huta, 2016) was used to assess the happiness orientations. This instrument has 5 items measuring hedonic motives (e.g., “seeking to enjoyment”) and 5 items assessing eudaimonic motives (e.g., “seeking to use the best in yourself”). Participants rated each item on a 7-point scale ranging from 1(strongly disagree) to 7(strongly agree). The Cronbach’s α values for the current measures were .85 for hedonic motives and .84 for eudaimonic motives.

Materialism

A 9 items Material Value Scale (MVS, Richins, 2004) was used to assess participants’ materialism values. The original MVS scale has three subscales: centrality, happiness and success, each dimension has six items (Richins & Dawson, 1992). The nine-item version MVS has been proven to have acceptable psychometric properties when used to assess general levels of materialism (Richins, 2004). One example of the items was “I’d be happier if I could afford to buy more things”. The participants rated their views on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). The Cronbach’s α of the 9 item MVS scale was .85, and the Cronbach’s α of centrality, happiness, and success were .76, .54, .73, respectively. In this study, only the average score of the 9 items MVS was used to represent the general level of materialism of the participants.

Self-Control

Personal self-control was measured using the 13 items Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS, Tangney et al., 2004). Participants were asked to rate to what extent each item reflected their typical behavior on a 7-points scale (1 = “not at all,” and 7 = “very much”). Scores on the scale were converted to positive scores, with high scores indicating high self-control. The Cronbach’s α of the BSCS in the current research was .81.

Unethical Behavior

In order to assess the tendency of participants to engage in unethical behavior, the authors revised the scenarios in the 8 items Unethical Decision-Making Scale and 13 items Cheat-Lie-Steal Scale (Detert et al., 2008) to make it suitable for the study and life scenarios of Chinese college students. The final Unethical Decision-Making Scale used in this study included 12 items that measured the participants’ likelihood of engaging in unethical behaviors in situations that were associated with self-interest. An example of the scenarios is “When you find yourself unable to answer questions during a test, look for opportunities to see other students’ answers.” Participants were asked to read each scenario and indicated how likely they would perform certain unethical behavior if they were the protagonist in the scenario, using a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all likely) to 7 (highly likely). In the study, an average score was used to indicate the likelihood of making an unethical decision, with high scores indicating a higher likelihood of making an unethical decision. The Cronbach’s α of the Unethical Decision Scale in the current research was .87.

Procedure and Ethics

This research was conducted using an online questionnaire. Participants filled out the questionnaire by scanning the QR code or clicking on the questionnaire link. The information about all participants was made anonymous, and personal identifiable information other than gender and age was not required. This was to ensure that participants were not affected when filling in the items related to moral decision-making. Before the questionnaire was formally completed, participants had to read the consent form to decide whether they wanted to participate in the research. All subjects could quit at any time during the study. Therefore, the final data obtained were with informed consent from the participants. The study protocol was approved by the first author’s university.

Data Analysis

All the data of the research was from participants’ self-report, as such posing the problem of common method deviation. Harman single factor method was used to test common method deviations (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Results showed that there were 5 factors with the eigenvalue greater than 1, both in un-rotation and rotation condition. In addition, the interpretation rates of the first factor variation obtained before and after rotation were 17.6% and 11.3%, respectively, which were less than the critical standard of 40%, indicating that the common method deviation was not obvious.

In the main analysis, first of all, the descriptive information and correlation matrix were calculated. Then, PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2012) was used to test the mediating effect between hedonic motives (eudaimonic motives) and unethical behavior (model 4). Based on the established mediation model, we further tested the moderating role of self-control between the association of hedonic motives, materialism and unethical behavior (model 15). In the mediation and moderation analysis, all the variables were mean-centered.

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Zero-Order Correlation

Table 1 provides descriptive statistics and zero-order correlation for all the study variables. The results indicated that there was no significant correlation between participant’s hedonic motives and unethical behavior (r = −.02, ns), but hedonic motives were significantly positively correlated with materialism (r = .24, p < .001), while materialism significantly positively correlated with unethical behavior (r = .36, p < .001). Eudaimonic motives were negatively associated with unethical behavior (r = −.36, p < .001), and also negatively associated with materialism (r = −.15, p < .01). Furthermore, Self-control was negatively associated with unethical behavior decision (r = −.51, p < .001), and also negatively significantly associated with materialism (r = −.26, p < .001). Participants’ age and gender were found not to significantly correlate with any of the variables, as such it was excluded from the further analysis. Contrary to our expectations, hedonic motives are not significantly associated with unethical behavior, and hypothesis 1 is not supported. However, the negative relationship between eudaimonic motives and unethical behavior is significant, and hypothesis 2 is supported.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations of measure
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Mediation Analysis

Although the relationship between hedonic motives and unethical behavior is not significant, recent research suggests that a significant correlation is not necessary to determine the existence of mediating effects (Hayes, 2017; Zhao et al., 2010). The PROCESS macro (model 4) (Hayes, 2012) was used to analyze the mediating effect of materialism between hedonic motives (eudaimonic motives) and unethical behavior. If the 95% confidence interval (CI) did not contain zero, the effect is significant.

The results are shown in Fig. 2. The bootstrap procedure (Based on 5000 bootstrap samples) revealed that materialism mediated the effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior (ab = .08, SE = .03, 95% CI = [.04, .14]; see Fig. 2a). The direct effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior (b = −.11, p < .05) contradicts the indirect effect of materialism mediation (b = .08, p < .05), suggesting that this is an inconsistent mediation model (MacKinnon et al., 2007). The two effects suppress each other so that the total effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior is not significant (b = −.02, p = .69). In Fig. 2b, materialism also mediates the relationship between eudaimonic motives and unethical behavior (ab = −.05, SE = .02, 95% CI = [−.09, −.01]). Therefore, Hypothesis 3 regarding the mediating effect of materialism is supported.

Fig. 2
figure 2

The mediation model of materialism. (a) Materialism mediation model for hedonic motives. (b) Materialism mediation model for eudaimonic motives. The coefficients are unstandardized. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

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As hedonic and eudaimonic motives have different effects on unethical behavior, they may have an interaction effect on materialism or unethical behavior. The study further investigated the interaction effect of hedonic motives and eudaimonic motives on materialism or immoral behavior. The results show that the interaction effect of these motives has no significant effect on materialism (b = .04, p = .45) and unethical behavior (b = −.03, p = .56). To further clarify the role of hedonic motives in unethical behavior, we take eudaimonic motives as a covariable and further analyze the mediating effect of materialism on unethical behavior.

As shown in Fig. 3, the results revealed that when eudaimonic motives were controlled, both the indirect effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior (b = .11, SE = .03, 95% CI = [.06, .16]) and the total effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior (b = .18, SE = .05, 95% CI = [.08, .29]) were significant. The direct effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior was not significant (b = .08, SE = .05, 95% CI = [−.03, .18]). This result indicates that materialism mediates the relationship between hedonic motives and unethical behavior. The mediation effect accounted for 61.50% of the total effect.

Fig. 3
figure 3

The mediation model of materialism with eudaimonic motives as covariate. The coefficients are unstandardized. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

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Moderation Analysis

As per hypothesis 4, participants’ personal self-control moderates the relationship between hedonic motives, materialism, and unethical behavior. The PROCESS Model 15 was used to test this relationship, and eudaimonic motives were controlled as covariates. The ordinary least squares (OLS) results are presented in Table 2. Self-control does not moderate the direct effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior (b = −.03, SE = .06, p = .63). However, the effect of materialism on unethical behavior was moderated by self-control (b = −.12, SE = .05, p < .01).

Table 2 Testing the moderated mediation effect
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To clarity the direction of the interaction, participants’ unethical behavior was plotted on materialism, separately at high (1 SD above the mean) and low (1 SD below the mean) levels of self-control (see Fig. 4). Fig. 4 shows that low self-control was associated with more unethical behavior for those high on materialism. However, for those with high self-control, unethical behavior was relatively low even in high materialism. Further, simple slope tests (Aiken & West, 1991) showed that for participants with low levels of self-control (1 SD below the mean), and higher materialism was associated with more unethical behavior (slope = .30, SE = .06, p < .001). For participants with a high level of self-control, the effect of materialism on unethical behavior was also significant (slope = .14, SE = .05, p < .01) but not as strong as that for participants with low self-control.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Interaction effect of self-control and materialism on the unethical behavior

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Moreover, the bootstrap procedure confirmed that the indirect effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior through materialism was moderated by self-control, because the index of moderated mediation was significant (b = −.05, SE = .02, 95% CI = [−.09, −.02]) (Hayes, 2015). The indirect effect of materialism for participant with low self-control (b = .12, SE = .03, 95% CI = [.07, .19]) was stronger than those with high self-control (b = .06, SE = .02, 95% CI = [.02, .10]). Therefore, our hypothesis 4 is supported.

Discussion

The study examined whether different happiness orientations would lead to unethical behavior and explored the underlying mechanism between the pursuit of happiness and unethical behavior. The results revealed that hedonic motives lead to unethical behavior through the mediation of materialism, while eudaimonic motives can inhibit it by reducing materialism. A boundary condition for these effects was also revealed, with participant’s self-control moderating the relationship between materialism and unethical behavior. These findings are discussed in detail later.

The current study first examined the relationship between different happiness orientations and unethical behavior. However, unexpectedly, we found no correlation between hedonic motives and unethical behavior. However, the eudaimonic motives negatively predicted unethical behavior. This finding is novel, as it is the first time two different kinds of happiness orientations have been found to have different relationships with unethical behavior. Previous researchers highlighted that the pursuit of happiness has a dark side (Gruber et al., 2011). This study extends this view in two ways. First, it investigates the different effects of different happiness orientations. The other is to expand the study of the dark side of happiness from emotion to unethical behavior. Our results suggest that if the unethical behavior is considered as a dark side of the pursuit of happiness, perhaps the pursuit of hedonic happiness is more likely to be the source of this dark side than eudaimonic happiness. Our research shows that eudaimonic motives are negatively associated with unethical behavior. Our subsequent analysis found that hedonic motives positively predicted unethical behavior after controlling for hedonic motives. If happiness is regarded as the ultimate goal of human behavior, different happiness orientations may lead to different behavior patterns due to different goal orientations (Fowers et al., 2010). Hedonia-seekers are more likely to ignore the relationship between the ends and means of activities (Kruglanski et al., 2018) because of the stronger instrumental goals orientations and adopt easier means to achieve the goal. While other researchers have explored the relationship between goal setting and unethical behavior (Ordóñez & Welsh, 2015), this study focuses on the more general and ultimate human motivations for happiness goals.

Second, the study is to examine the mediating mechanism of materialism between different happiness orientations and unethical behavior. For hedonic motives, the mediating effect model of materialism is inconsistent. The indirect and direct effects in the model are opposite, so the total effect of hedonic motives on unethical behavior is not significant. However, the mediating effect of materialism on eudaimonic motives indicates that it can reduce materialism and thus inhibit unethical behavior. These results support our hypothesis that materialism mediates the relationship between happiness orientation and unethical behavior. Crucially, we found that hedonic motives positively predicted unethical behavior after controlling for eudaimonic motives. The idea that the pursuit of hedonia makes people more materialistic, making people immoral, is consistent with the lay theory of the public. Aside from the empirical evidence supporting this assertion, the current study falls within the goal system theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002) to explain this phenomenon more deeply. The pursuit of hedonic happiness tends to focus more on external materialistic goals. As the importance of such goals increases, people may choose the easiest means to achieve them. This may be the main reason why hedonia is associated with immorality. This could be because people tend to slacken their moral awareness and resort to immoral means to achieve their goals. While both the pursuit of hedonia and the pursuit of eudaimonia can increase people’s happiness (Huta & Ryan, 2010), they are inversely related to the goals of materialism and thus have different effects on unethical behavior. This may be an underlying reason why studies suggest that the pursuit of eudaimonia is better than that of hedonia (Huta, 2016a). Our result is consistent with the explanation of the bounded ethicality model (Chugh & Kern, 2016), suggesting that the self-enhancement process leads to a lack of moral awareness. In the circular model of human values, hedonism is closely associated with higher-order values of self-enhancement and personal focus (Schwartz et al., 2012). This may be one reason why hedonia leads to unethical behavior. Additionally, the current result is consistent with the finding that participants engage in more unethical behavior when they pursue extrinsic goals with an extrinsic motivation (Sheldon et al., 2018). While the study found that the pursuit of hedonic happiness leads to more unethical behavior, it is not against the pursuit of hedonia. However, it suggests that hedonia may highlight the advantage of eudaimonia in practice because it is more likely to have a dark side, a reason why the pursuit of happiness is not possible (Gruber et al., 2011). More recently, Martela and Sheldon (2019) proposed a eudaimonic activity model that attempts to integrate theories of people’s well-being into doing and feeling well. Psychological happiness research has emphasized experienced happiness; to be truly happy, people must first opt to do well and choose the right means to achieve their goals.

The study also hypothesized that the indirect effects of hedonic motives on unethical behavior via materialism are moderated by self-control. The results revealed that higher materialism was associated with more unethical behavior in individuals with low self-control. This is consistent with the general crime theory (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), stating that low self-control may be one of the main reasons why individuals tend to engage in immoral behaviors to satisfy their own self-interest. Moreover, the present study found that self-control only moderated the path between materialism and unethical behavior. One possible explanation is that participants with high hedonic motives do not necessarily behave unethically, regardless of their level of self-control, unless they have high materialism. This pattern of results suggests that hedonic orientation tends to make people pursue extrinsic goals and to attain these important extrinsic goals people choose means based on efficiency rather than moral principles. In particular, when subjects had low trait self-control, they were more likely to engage in unethical behavior. Traditional studies on the relationship between trait self-control and happiness have generally assumed that trait self-control promotes people’s happiness (Hofmann et al., 2014), based on the perspective of different happiness orientations, this study found that the pursuit of different happiness may have different relationships with self-control. There is no significant correlation between hedonic motives and trait self-control, but there is a positive correlation between eudaimonia motives and trait self-control. This is consistent with the eudaimonia activity model (Martela & Sheldon, 2019), suggesting that eudaimonic motives may have important positive effects in promoting people’s self-control ability.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

The current study contributes to the unethical behavior research and happiness research theoretically and practically. First, this study has found that hedonic motives lead to unethical behavior, especially after controlling for the eudaimonic motives. The research uses goal system theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002) to highlight on the findings, explaining unethical behavior as a chosen instrumental means in the pursuit of hedonia. This study provides novel insights into studies on unethical behavior and the dynamics of happiness. Second, an important mechanism was found in the difference between hedonic and eudaimonic happiness orientation, that is, materialism. Most existing studies on materialism focus on happiness and consumption behavior (Kasser, 2016). Although some studies have explored the relationship between materialism and immoral behaviors (Liang et al., 2016), the antecedents of materialism are not clearly explained. From the perspective of happiness orientation (Huta 2016; Huta & Ryan, 2010; Ryan & Deci, 2001) and its relationship with instrumental and constitutive goal orientation (Fowers et al., 2010), we propose that materialism may be a subgoal in the pursuit of happiness. According to the goal system theory (Kruglanski et al., 2002), this structural relationship between ends and means creates a motive for unethical behavior. Third, a boundary condition of self-control has been confirmed as an effective way to curb the unethical behavior arising from materialism. There have been discussions about how self-control failure impairs moral action (Baumeister & Alghamdi, 2015). Contributions from this study are meant to show that self-control can effectively prevent unethical behavior that results from the pursuit of extrinsic goals. In summary, this research may promote the pursuit of appropriate happiness and inspire prevention and interventions to reduce unethical behavior. Notably, this study does not assert that hedonic orientation directly leads to unethical behavior. The study suggests that hedonic orientation may, under certain circumstances, lead to unethical behaviors by inducing people to pursue goals in inappropriate ways. Contrastingly, eudaimonic orientation does not have this dark side effect.

Limitations and Further Directions

This study has made some profound findings. However, it has some limitations. First, the nature of the study is a correlation, and current data are only based on cross-sectional self-report; as such, it becomes difficult to establish a causal conclusion. The explanation of materialism as the goal of pursuing hedonic happiness in the study is mainly based on theoretical thinking, and the specific relationship between the two is worthy of further discussion. Follow-up studies can use experimental methods to manipulate the accessibility of hedonic motives to investigate its impact on materialism and unethical behavior. Second, there were some problems with the sample. The data were obtained from college students, placing some limitations on its generalization. There was also a gender imbalance, with significantly more women than men. However, there was no gender difference in variables in our study, as such a gender imbalance does not affect the conclusions. Future studies could collect data from more diverse samples using longitudinal or cross-cultural data to illustrate the link between hedonic motives, materialism and unethical behavior. Finally, although different studies have used the assessment methods adopted by this study to measure unethical behavior (Detert et al., 2008; Keem et al., 2018), there are some limitations. This can be curtailed by using a more ecological field experiment combined with the assessment scale to illustrate the underlying mechanisms of why people engage in unethical behavior. Despite these limitations, the present study provided evidence for the relationship between hedonic motives and unethical behavior via the materialism, and this relationship is dependent on the trait of self-control.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the results of this study indicate that different happiness orientations have different relationships with unethical behavior. Compared with hedonic motives, eudaimonic motives are negatively correlated with unethical behavior, indicating that the negative effects of the pursuit of happiness may be derived from the pursuit of hedonia. This research finds that mechanism plays a mediating role between hedonic motives and unethical behavior by exploring the mechanism of happiness orientation and unethical behavior. The pursuit of hedonia leads to the pursuit of extrinsic goals, leading to unethical behavior. Additionally, self-control moderated the relationship between materialism and unethical behavior. Specifically, high self-control may be a protective factor against impulses to engage in unethical behavior.

CRediT Authorship Contribution

Peng Cui: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing-original draft, Writing-review & editing. Yufan Shen: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing-original draft, Writing-review & editing. Confidence Hommey: Writing-original draft, Writing-review & editing. Jianhong Ma: Writing-review & editing, Supervision.