Abstract
The mediation of an attitude to a product following a brief message is investigated. Statements indicating whether a computer was running on energy from renewable or more conventional sources were presented and users’ experiences were measured. Participants’ pre-existing environmental concern and the satisfaction they expressed with the computers were related, but only when the “renewable energy” message was presented. We conclude that enduring attitudes to environmental concern and situation-specific knowledge can interact in evaluations of a situation – a finding with implications for behavior-change strategies. Theoretically, results are discussed in terms of “spillover” from one behavior to another, the Halo Effect and self-activation, where those with a self-identity of being environmentally conscious have this identity activated by messaging congruent with their self-identity, resulting in an influence of their opinion of a product. Conversely, those with an anti-environmental worldview might rate products more negatively when the product’s environmental credentials are mentioned, presumably because these credentials are not congruent with self-identity.
Highlights
Many things influence whether a person chooses to buy a product
The four questions that assessed the experience of using the computers had their responses averaged to provide a single computer rating for each participant. This was justified by good agreement between the four measures: Cronbach α = 0.81. This combined computer rating was compared against environmental concern as measured using the combined New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scores
We investigated the possible mediating effect of ecological identity on the “environmental concern → computer rating” relationship using the bootstrap mediator procedure described by Preacher and Hayes (2008, pp. 879–880)
Summary
Many things influence whether a person chooses to buy a product. Brand loyalty, price and usability, review quality, and word of mouth may all be influential. Once the person has invested in the product their experience will be influential in determining whether they continue to use it It is well-known that the information provided before during or after an event can influence our perception, our memory and our lasting experience of the event itself (Dooling and Lachman, 1971; Bransford and Johnson, 1972; Kozminsky, 1977; Pichert and Anderson, 1977). The study took place in a new computer laboratory The computers in this room were part of a technology trial and had been modified so that they ran off Direct Current (DC) energy. The questionnaire used here was the same as for the “conventional sources” condition in the DC suite
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