Abstract Direct experience plays an important role in the recidivism of consumer unethical behavior, and ethical judgment is a vital step in the process of ethical decision-making. To exploit the psychological mechanism of direct experience functioning in the formation of consumers’ unethical behavioral intention, ethical judgment is selected as the major factor considering its significance toward the solution of “old habits die hard” in the recidivism of consumer unethical behavior. In this study, questionnaires under four typical ethical situations are used to check the mediating effect and moderating effect of ethical judgment in the impact of direct experience on consumers’ unethical behavioral intention. The results suggest that , under the condition of controlled ethical situations, direct experience is still found to promote the formation of consumer’s intention to behave unethically; direct experience could affect consumers’ unethical behavioral intention directly or/and indirectly through ethical judgment. Moreover, the function of direction experience is transmitted in the direct pathway much more than in the indirect one. Additionally, ethical judgment is found to moderate the effect of direct experience influencing consumers’ unethical behavioral intention, and the higher the level of ethical judgment is, the more unethical behavioral intention is influenced positively by direct experience.
2016, Vol. 13 
