“Beyond the Attitude-Behaviour Gap: Novel Perspectives in Consumer Ethics”: Introduction to the Thematic Symposium

Abstract

Research into the ethical, sustainable, green and sociopolitical aspects of consumption has grown considerably since the 1990s. As Belz and Peattie (2009) suggest, however, perhaps the most consistent finding within this burgeoning literature has been inconsistency between what people say (or express via attitudes, values etc.) and what they actually do—the so-called ‘‘attitude-behaviour’’ and ‘‘intention-behaviour’’ gaps (e.g., Bray et al. 2011; Carrigan and Attalla 2001; Carrington et al. 2010; Chatzidakis et al. 2007; De Pelsmaker et al. 2005; Nicholls and Lee 2006). For instance, Young et al. (2010) observe that an estimated 30 % of consumers indicate concern about environmental issues, yet only 5 % translate this concern into action. Narrowing the gap between ethical consumption ‘‘attitudes/intentions’’ and actual consumption ‘‘behaviour’’ represents a challenge of practical and theoretical significance in light of the variety of top down and bottom up actors currently seeking to ‘‘mobilise the consumer’’ (Barnett et al. 2010) towards positive environmental and socio-economic outcomes. Extant research on the ethical consumption ‘‘attitudebehaviour’’ gap broadly falls into two camps. First, there is a considerable amount of psychological and attitudinal research that focuses on methodological flaws, situational issues, and the addition of further constructs (see e.g., Luzar and Cosse 1998; Ogden 2003). Methodological issues include the overreliance on quantitative survey formats that encourage rational answers rather than delving into everyday hedonistic shopping responses, and the desire for respondents to provide socially desirable answers and appear to be ‘good citizens’ (e.g., Trudel and Cotte 2009; Auger and Devinney 2007). Context-specific issues include lack of finance, time or appropriate product/brand information (e.g., labelling/brand image) or reluctance to change convenient shopping patterns (e.g., Shaw and Clarke 1999; De Pelsmaker et al. 2005). Authors have also proposed the addition of further constructs such as ‘‘ethical obligation’’, ‘‘self-identity’’ (Shaw and Clarke 1999; Shaw et al. 2000; Shaw and Shiu 2002a, b, 2003), and ‘‘commitment and sacrifice’’ (Carrington et al. 2014). Furthermore, a parallel line of research has examined potential variables that may increase the inconsistency between attitudes and behaviour rather than having an additional direct effect on behaviour (moderating variables). For instance, in the context of Fair Trade consumption, Chatzidakis et al. (2007) consider common beforeor afterthe-act justifications or ‘‘neutralisations’’ (Sykes and Matza 1957). Concurrently, we observe that a second camp of ‘interpretive’ and cross-disciplinary research has entered the discussion on the back of such developments. This literature stream argues that the ‘‘attitude-behaviour gap’’ is a methodological construction of decision-making modelling studies that continue to assume that consumer behaviour is rational and stripped away from a broader social, historical and cultural context (Caruana 2007a, b). This field conceptualises ethical consumers as sociallyconnected beings that establish shared meaning systems and construct complex consumption identities (Carrington R. Caruana University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK e-mail: Caruana@nottingham.ac.uk