How meaningless and substantive green claims jointly determine product environmental perceptions

Abstract

This research examines how consumers perceive products in the presence (and absence) of substantive attribute information and ‘meaningless’ claims. Meaningless claims are product information devoid of any factual, substantive, objective, or concrete detail, which consumers may nonetheless ‘believe’ is a useful claim and on which they base their perceptions. Across three experiments we predict and find that meaningless claims of being ‘friendly to’ or ‘caring about’ the environment are sufficient to increase consumer pro-environmental perceptions. Most importantly, we find that this effect is not additive when meaningless claims co-occur with more substantive information, and that it holds while controlling for consumer environmental identity and skepticism. This has theoretical implications for understanding how consumers assess product information, demonstrating that the impact of peripheral cues such as meaningless claims is not over and above that of objective claims, when these pieces of information are presented together. It also has practical implications for policymakers in terms of consumer advocacy, justifying the need for regulation of such meaningless claims.