A circular economy is a “closed-loop” system designed so that products flow back into the production cycle after use. With many companies implementing take-back programs as part of their ...sustainability strategy, a fundamental shift in consumption has occurred, with consumers considering disposal during and even before purchase decision making. Eight experiments reveal that consumers indicate a greater willingness to pay for circular program products. An increase in psychological ownership underlies the difference in product valuation. Specifically, the additional disposal control uniquely afforded by circular products increases the capacity of circular take-back program products to evoke psychological ownership. The process explanation is directly tested through mediation. Experimentally manipulating antecedents of psychological ownership (i.e., disposal control and psychological ownership) provides further support for the conceptual framework.
This paper examines the question of why consumers engage in ethical consumption. The authors draw on self-affirmation theory to propose that the choice of an ethical product serves a self-restorative ...function. Four experiments provide support for this assertion: a self-threat increases consumers' choice of an ethical option, even when the alternative choice is objectively superior in quantity (Study 1) and product quality (Study 2). Further, restoring self-esteem through positive feedback eliminates this increase in ethical choice (Studies 2 and 3). As an additional test of the robustness of our results, a final study examined the effect of self-threat on choice in a field setting (Study 4). The findings indicate that ethical purchases are not just altruistic. They hold purposeful individual value and can help in the self-restorative process. Implications for managers making decisions regarding investment in ethical product features are discussed.
Most agree that climate change is a serious threat. It has increasingly been recognized by scientists and policymakers as a consumer behavior issue: What, how, and how much people consume directly ...impacts the environment. Sustainable consumer behavior is behavior that attempts to satisfy present needs while simultaneously benefiting or limiting environmental impact. Moreover, understanding sustainable consumer behavior is central to any paradigm shifts in how society approaches environmental problems. This article summarizes and organizes research from the past 20 years and explores the psychological drivers of sustainable consumer behavior. Four areas of scientific inquiry that have dominated research agendas are identified: (a) cognitive barriers, (b) the self, (c) social influence, and (d) product characteristics. The objective is to provide a valuable research tool that stimulates additional research in the area of sustainable consumer behavior.
Government regulators and consumer packaged goods companies around the world struggle with methods to help consumers make better nutritional decisions. In this research we find that, depending on the ...consumer, a traffic light color-coding (TLC) approach to product labeling can have a substantial impact on perceptions of foods' health quality and food choice. Across 3 lab experiments and a field experiment, we find that TLC labels provide nondieters with an information processing cue that directly influences evaluations in a manner that is consistent with the "stop" and "go" logic behind the traffic light labels. In contrast, we find that dieters do not simply adopt the red, yellow, and green cues into their health quality evaluations. Instead, regardless of the color, the TLC approach increases the depth at which dieters process label information. Dieters tend to focus on the costs of consumption and, as a result, lower their health quality evaluations. In a field study, measuring actual behavior in a grocery store, health quality evaluations predicted consumption and consistent with the color coding of the labels nondieters consumed the most when they were presented with a predominantly green label.
This article proposes a utilitarian model in which recycling could reduce consumers' negative emotions from wasting resources (i.e., taking more resources than what is being consumed) and increase ...consumers' positive emotions from disposing of consumed resources. The authors provide evidence for each component of the utility function using a series of choice problems and formulate hypotheses on the basis of a parsimonious utilitarian model. Experiments with real disposal behavior support the model hypotheses. The findings suggest that the positive emotions associated with recycling can overpower the negative emotions associated with wasting. As a result, consumers could use a larger amount of resources when recycling is an option, and more strikingly, this amount could go beyond the point at which their marginal consumption utility becomes zero. The authors extend the theoretical model and introduce acquisition utility and the moderating effect of the costs of recycling (financial, physical, and mental). From a policy perspective, this research argues for a better understanding of consumers' disposal behavior to increase the effectiveness of environmental policies and campaigns.
Abstract
Mental illnesses are among the most frequent health conditions worldwide, affecting both men and women. However, we find that men are more likely than women to avoid adopting mobile apps ...that are designed to promote users' mental health. Building on previous research that men are often more motivated than women to behave in gender‐congruent ways, we suggest that there exists a mental health‐feminine stereotype that acts as an obstacle to men's adoption of mental health apps. Privacy and self‐help features offered by digital mental health apps are insufficient to overcome the mental health‐stereotype that deter men from pursuing mental health support. Across five studies, we show that consumers feel more feminine when adopting mental health apps, and perceive others who adopt mental health apps to be more feminine than those who do not. We also show that presenting mental health apps in a masculine frame increases the likelihood of men adopting mental health apps, especially those with stronger adherence to traditional masculinity ideology.
The urgent need to address unsustainable consumption practices has become increasingly evident. While much traditional consumer behavior research serves to stimulate consumption, the focus needs to ...shift towards encouraging more sustainable consumption patterns. This commentary synthesizes insights from a roundtable discussion at the 2023 Society for Consumer Psychology Conference, which comprised an exploration of novel, creative, actionable, and theoretically sound avenues for getting people to consume less, consume better. The commentary tackles three essential questions: (1) What do we mean by consuming less, consuming better? (2) Who is/are responsible for such behaviors? (3) How do we get people to consume less, consume better? In doing so, it lays out several future research directions.
In this research, we propose that, by their very nature, issues linked to environmental sustainability feel psychologically distant to people. Because of this, the mindset that an individual holds ...can predict reactions to eco-friendly products. Across five experiments, the authors demonstrate that construing information at an abstract (vs. concrete) level is associated with more positive reactions to eco-friendly products. This differential response is driven by the fact that an abstract construal is compatible with a focus on the future. Eco-friendly products can potentially be made somewhat more appealing to individuals with a concrete construal by strategically altering communications about these products to match this construal. We demonstrate that this can be accomplished by presenting detailed, concrete information about the sustainable attributes of the product. We also present results suggesting that explicitly framing communications about eco-friendly products to focus on the present (vs. the future) may accomplish the same goal.
•Issues linked to environmental sustainability feel psychologically distant.•Abstract construal levels relate to positive reactions to eco-friendly products.•This is because an abstract construal is compatible with a focus on the future.•Eco-friendly options focusing on the present can appeal to concrete mindsets.•Eco-friendly options offering detailed information can appeal to concrete mindsets.
Background:
Many sustainability initiatives are successful and produce results that benefit the environment. However, others miss the mark and fail to produce the desired outcome. Past research has ...typically focused on understanding why initiatives fail, without first considering differences in how they fail.
Focus of the Article:
This manuscript is related to Research and Evaluation—specifically, the social marketing concept it focuses on is evaluating the outcome of sustainability initiatives.
Research Question:
What are the different ways in which sustainability initiatives can fail?
Program Design/Approach:
A multi-day workshop of interdisciplinary behavioral sustainability scholars led to the identification of five systematic differences in how sustainability initiatives can fail, suggesting that failure can take on not only different levels of severity, but different forms altogether. Within this framework, we provide examples of each type of failure.
Importance to the Social Marketing Field:
We argue that diagnosing how instead of just why an initiative fails offers important insights that can reduce the likelihood of future failures—insights that may be missed by a narrow focus on the why behind any given failure.
Recommendations for Research or Practice:
The identification of the different ways in which sustainability initiatives fail can lead to improvements in the design and implementation of behavioral interventions, facilitating successful sustainability outcomes and preventing unintended outcomes. Specific recommendations are discussed for each type of failure.
Limitations:
The examples in our framework are not exhaustive, but are instead intended to be illustrative exemplars of each type of failure. Moreover, as our focus is on how sustainability initiatives fail, we do not attempt to diagnose why particular initiatives fail.
