Differentiating the Attitude-Behavior Gap: A Consumer Typology

Abstract

While most studies in the field of consumer research acknowledge differences between consumption patterns of distinct consumer groups, research dealing with the attitude-behavior gap has hitherto not been sufficiently linked with these findings. As a result, attitude-behavior gap has been often conceptualized as a uniform phenomenon for all consumer groups leaving variances across distinct groups largely unexplored. Based on a representative survey (N=1000) among German consumers, this paper challenges this assumption and presents five consumer clusters with different attitude-behavior gaps related to distinct demographic and socio-psychological characteristics. This typology enables analyzing the determinants of the attitude-behavior gap across different social groups and allows for more differentiated empirical research and managerial analysis. The findings contribute to the ethical consumption literature in that they differentiate applied ethics across distinct consumer groups as well as to the broader consumer research by demonstrating the relationship between individual characteristics and distinct attitude-behavior gaps.