Do online environments promote sufficiency or overconsumption? Online advertisement and social media effects on clothing, digital devices, and air travel consumption

Abstract

Sustainable consumption is increasingly shaped by online environments. Everyday exposure to online advertisement and social media content by peers may influence individual consumption decisions. By representative online surveys (N = 2,694), we examined how perception of online environments influences individual consumption levels of clothing, digital devices and leisure air travel, mediated by individual aspiration levels, personal and social norms. Structural equation modeling confirms relationships between perceived consumption‐promoting online content and consumption levels, fully mediated through aspiration levels. Sufficiency‐promoting online content is associated with higher social and personal norms for sufficiency, but neither of the latter are linked to aspiration or consumption levels. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that aspiration levels and consumption decisions are influenced by consumption‐promoting online content. Due to the use of cross‐sectional data, it cannot be ruled out that these results reflect that more consumption‐oriented individuals pay more attention to consumption‐promoting online content. Hence, the dominant causal direction needs to be determined by experimental or longitudinal methods.

COVID-19 and dynamics of environmental awareness, sustainable consumption and social responsibility in Malaysia

“…The recent studies have confirmed the impact of COVID-19 on EA, SC and SR of generation (Severo et al 2020 ). There is convincing evidence in the literature about the consumption patterns of consumers and the possible threats posed on the planet and the human welfare (Frick et al 2020 ), and the emergence of COVID-19 and recent expansion of science, technology, development of industrial and economic activities have convinced consumers that the climate change is an intransigent concern (Evensen et al 2021 ; Senapathi et al 2021 ). Building upon the theoretical research gap, this research will contribute to investigate the difference in the perception of EA, SC and SR among people of different ages and religious backgrounds during COVID-19.…”

Can reflective diary-writing increase sufficiency-oriented consumption? A longitudinal intervention addressing the role of basic psychological needs, subjective well-being, and time affluence

“…As sufficiency has not received much attention within psychology (but see for example Frick et al, 2020;Joanes, 2019;Verfuerth et al, 2019), there is little literature on how to strengthen it using interventions. This is the first study testing if daily reflection on sufficiency and consumption increases actual sufficiency orientation.…”

“…Only lately has eco-sufficiency been targeted by environmental psychologists. People who score high on sufficiency orientation are more likely to engage in less resource intensive (consumption) behavior causing lower ecological footprints (Gorge et al, 2015;Linz, 2004;Verfuerth et al, 2019), more sustainable clothing consumption (Joanes, 2019), and behavior in online shopping environments (Frick et al, 2020). Such a decreased focus on materialistic consumption and value-orientation is associated with increased subjective well-being (SWB, overview by Kasser, 2016), across cultures (Dittmar et al, 2014), and over time (Kasser et al, 2014).…”

Policies to Transform the Internet from Marketplace to Public Space

“…Thus, personalized advertisement has been shown to lead to more purchases than traditional advertising on TV, radio or billboards (Dinner et al 2014). Instead of catering better to existing consumption needs, online marketing often evokes new consumption desires (Frick et al 2020). Social Media further fuel this trend since their attention-seeking architecture often promotes consumerism and conspicuous consumption.…”