Abstract
In this paper, we use choice architecture techniques to activate both social and personal norms, seeking to increase pro-environmental choices and to better understand the effect of such norm types on post-choice emotional responses. In four experiments, we make different social or personal norms salient by aligning choice environments with psychosocial mechanisms that activate different types of norms. We use different choice architecture techniques to change information, alter product sets, and generate the social consequences of choices. The target behavior, purchasing a recycled paper notebook, is captured through direct purchase behaviors or willingness to pay commitments. We find that choice architecture activates personal but not social norms, and that associated positive and negative emotions (guilt, shame, regret and pride) are elicited by choices but not by willingness to pay. Moreover, manipulating choice environment moderates the relationship between choice and norm-related emotions, such that positive emotional responses seem to be stronger than negative ones. The results suggest that choice architecture interventions can activate individual level beliefs about sustainability and help reduce the attitude-behavior gap.
Highlights
Almost twenty years since Robbins [1] argued for more responsible consumption behavior, helping individuals make pro-environmental decisions remains a focal goal for decision-making scholars in multiple fields
This study focuses on using choice architecture to activate descriptive social norms in some cases, and personal norms in other cases, in order to promote pro-environmental purchase preferences that are elicited either as direct choices or value estimations
We expect that decision environments that activate social or personal norms will induce pro-environmental choices more frequently and encourage higher product value estimations than non-norm decision environments
Summary
Almost twenty years since Robbins [1] argued for more responsible consumption behavior, helping individuals make pro-environmental decisions remains a focal goal for decision-making scholars in multiple fields. Behaviors are changing at a slower pace than the planet requires to stop climate change. We approach this challenge by accepting that many people have admirable intentions on which they fail to act, a phenomenon that has been referred to as the attitude-behavior gap [2, 3]. [3]) in spite of its economic, social, and environmental benefits, our concern is to identify interventions that help bridge the attitude-behavior gap.
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