The impact of normative beliefs and self-consciousness on making greener choices through greener preference

Zhou, Yuanyuan and Wilson, Juliette and Karampela, Maria (2019) The impact of normative beliefs and self-consciousness on making greener choices through greener preference. In: 41st Annual ISMS Marketing Science Conference, 2019-06-20 - 2019-06-22, Department of Business Studies, University of Roma Tre, Rome, Ital.

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Abstract

Green consumption has been seen as a means of minimizing the adverse impact of human consumption on the environment (Tripathi, 2017). The promotion of greener choices has been a concern for researchers, scholars, marketing practitioners and policy-makers. One way of popularising this is through the design of effective behavioural interventions by presenting ‘motivationally salient’ alternatives. This requires an understanding of the intentional formulation processes behind the resulting green consumption. Extant frameworks use normative motivations to understand this process which are either from self-expectation (personal norms) or social expectation (social norms). Norms play a crucial role in an individual’s choice by shaping individual preferences (Bicchieri, et al, 2014), while the role of an overall greener preference has been neglected. Thus, this research synthesises both personal and social normative sources to examine their combined effect on greener choice through green preference. Especially, this research unpacks how private and public dimensions of self-consciousness affect the greener choice making when consumers encounter conflicted expectations/norms. Additionally, this research investigates how ‘choice architecture’ would further help consumers to make greener choice. This research adopts experimental research to examine two interventional routes to alter consumers’ behaviour towards greener choices: i) motivationally normative information as the content of choice options, and ii) choice architecture (i.e., default setting). This research, preliminary findings of which will be presented in the conference, aims to bridge the theoretical gap regarding how normative motives interplay with self-consciousness in driving green consumption. It will also have an important role in supporting marketing practitioners in designing effective interventions for promoting greener choices. The preliminary findings of this research will be presented in the conference. The aim is to bridge the theoretical gap regarding how normative motives interplay with the self-consciousness in driving green consumption. It will also have an important role in supporting marketing practitioners in the design of of effective interventions for promoting greener choices.

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