My editor, Chanel (who’s cranking out healthy and delicious posts for Fan Stuff now), forwarded me an article in Slate a couple days ago about a study on how our expansive and easy access to plug into the green movement might affect our perception of ourselves. As far as this study suggests, it affects it pretty well, if by well you mean that just buying products with the word “Green!” emblazoned within a starburst on the package lends us an exaggerated sense of moral self esteem that we use to offset an act of moral bankruptcy that follows.

The U of Toronto study asked participants to do some online shopping with a choice at a store that sold eco-friendly products and another that sold similar, products that did nothing to protect baby seals and the like. The first segment was followed by a version of the Ultimatum Game, which the participants were told was unrelated, where the shoppers were given $6 and had to share some portion of it with another person. Next up was a second experiment that began with the online shopping bit, followed by another computer-based Ultimatum Game that allowed for both cheating and stealing.

The findings showed that the people who shopped at the green store were also the ones who tended to share less in the first Ultimatum Game and the ones who cheated and stole in the second experiment’s version.

It appears this study contributes to a growing examination of how we use morality as a form of currency, called moral credentials. When we do something good that we’re not forced to do, like oh say, helping an elderly woman up after a fall into the gutter, we gain a moral credit. These credentials seem to burn a hole in our pockets, as it appears the next opportunity we have to gain another credit, we instead cash the last one in. Perhaps they have a fleeting quality, like a $20 bill printed with disappearing ink.

Like I said, the exploration of how we use moral credentials is still nascent, but the Toronto findings underscore a human tendency to get back to an equilibrium of complacency as soon as possible. Being good is hard and we’re not as a species evil by nature. We’re a blasé species.

The article jogged my memory back to about a month or so ago, to the short-lived news piece about Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup getting their grubby hands on H1N1 vaccine before some hospitals in NY got it. The story broke on a Thursday and by Sunday it had been defused. In much the same way being good is hard, so too is being angry. And much like how we spend our moral credentials quickly, we seek to return to our unagitated state of equilibrium where our ire is raised as well. In this case, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs were raked over the coals on an “Oh, Really?” segment of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live. About two minutes of ho hum satire returned the public to a complacent state.

Aside from the disheartening fact that it was Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler who carried out the pillory on behalf of the rest of us, the calm that followed the storm bothered me. Citigroup and Goldman had gotten off too easy. Seth Meyers? That’s all it took?

Apparently, yes. The necessary elements were there: a wide audience and a public mockery. The bailout-funded companies had their comeuppance and we could all go back to not caring once more. Satire provides us with a quick and easy outlet, just like co-option of the “green” movement. Rather than boycotting an oil company after a spill, we can buy a roll of recycled paper towels at the grocery store and stop at the oil company’s gas station (conveniently located on the drive home) without feeling badly. Similarly, rather than burning Goldman Sachs executives in effigy outside the company’s headquarters, we can just sit back on the couch and let Seth Meyers do the work for us.

We don’t burn enough people in effigy these days.

(Here’s some good satire for you:)

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More on HowStuffWorks.com:
What’s the Ultimatum Game?
How Greenwashing Works
Equilibrium