Nudging sustainable consumption: The use of descriptive norms to promote a minority behavior in a realistic online shopping environment

Demarque, Christophe; Charalambides, Laetitia; Hilton, Denis; Waroquier, Laurent

doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2015.06.008

Cited by 185 publications

(156 citation statements)

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“…As defaults were found to affect participants’ actual product choices irrespective of their environmental attitude, they can readily be applied even in attitude‐heterogeneous target populations (Kaiser, Arnold, et al, ). In the realm of environmental decision‐making, our findings add to the previous research on green defaults and go one step further by applying green defaults to a novel behavioral domain (sustainable consumption) with an enormous potential for green choices (see also Demarque et al, ). Notwithstanding, the behavioral end toward which defaults might be used as a means is a normative decision ideally emerging out of a democratic process (see Kaiser, Midden, & Cervinka, ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Green defaults have also been shown to support sustainability outside private homes by automatically switching computers in a university computer lab to stand-by (Hirst, Reed, Kaplan, & Miller, 2013), reducing the room temperature in offices (Brown, Johnstone, Haščič, Vong, & Barascud, 2013) and increasing the share of vegetables during lunch through pre-portioned bowls (Friis et al, 2017). Interestingly, whereas all of these studies have demonstrated the power of green defaults to guide environmentally friendly consumer behavior in the broadest sense, no research to date has assessed the impact of green defaults on sustainable shopping (e.g., buying organic food, beverages in bottles or recycled paper towels; but see Demarque, Charalambides, Hilton, & Waroquier, 2015, for the effect of norm-based nudges on sustainable shopping behavior).…”

Section: Seemingly Conflicting Assumptions Specifying the Interplaymentioning

confidence: 99%

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How green defaults promote environmentally friendly decisions: Attitude‐conditional default acceptance but attitude‐unconditional effects on actual choices

Taube

Vetter

2019

J Applied Social Pyschol

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Defaults (i.e., options that become effective without an active choice) have been found to be powerful tools to influence decision‐making in a range of behavioral domains. However, seemingly conflicting assumptions have been expressed regarding the interplay of defaults with individual attitudes. Whereas some expect attitude‐conditional effects (i.e., a statistical default‐by‐attitude interaction), others assume an attitude‐unconditional effectiveness of defaults (i.e., statistically additive effects). Integrating both assumptions, we argue that the interplay of defaults and attitudes depends on what is considered a default effect. Specifically, whereas default acceptance is likely to be attitude‐conditional, we predicted that defaults and attitudes would add up in explaining people's actual choices. We tested these hypotheses in an online shopping scenario presenting environmentally friendly or conventional default products to 231 participants. Participants’ environmental attitude was assessed with the General Ecological Behavior scale and actual product choices were identified if participants rejected a given default product. In line with our hypotheses, default acceptance was predicted by a default‐by‐attitude interaction. In contrast, actual environmentally friendly product choices were found to be an additive function of defaults and participants’ environmental attitude. From an applied perspective, our findings suggest that defaults can readily be applied even in attitude‐heterogeneous target populations. Concurrently, however, our findings also speak of the importance of people's attitudes for understanding individual decision‐making.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Seemingly Conflicting Assumptions Specifying the Interplaymentioning

confidence: 99%

How green defaults promote environmentally friendly decisions: Attitude‐conditional default acceptance but attitude‐unconditional effects on actual choices

Taube

Vetter

2019

J Applied Social Pyschol

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“…Although positive verbal quantifiers, such as "many," have shown to be effective in encouraging proenvironmental behaviors that are not done by a majority (Demarque, Charalambides, Hilton, & Waroquier, 2015), people often do not follow a minority norm (Mortensen et al, 2019;Sieverding, Decker, & Zimmermann, 2010). Although positive verbal quantifiers, such as "many," have shown to be effective in encouraging proenvironmental behaviors that are not done by a majority (Demarque, Charalambides, Hilton, & Waroquier, 2015), people often do not follow a minority norm (Mortensen et al, 2019;Sieverding, Decker, & Zimmermann, 2010).…”

Section: T a B L E 3 Effects Of Social Influence On Requests For Infomentioning

confidence: 99%

Social influence and forest habitat conservation: Experimental evidence from Vermont's maple producers

Byerly

D’Amato

Hagenbuch

et al. 2019

Conservat Sci and Prac

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Working landscapes can provide biodiversity and ecosystem services. Many voluntary conservation programs ask those who manage working lands-farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners-to steward their resources in ways that maintain or increase these benefits. While research on landowners suggests the importance of social influence in management decisions, few studies have tested whether providing information about the behavior and opinions of others affects decisions related to private land and forest management, stewardship, or conservation. Using a randomized controlled trial design, we mailed three versions of a solicitation letter for a bird habitat conservation program to 967 individuals who manage forests to produce maple syrup. Maple producers who were messaged about recognition for participation were as likely to ask for more information about the program as those who received only a control message that described the program. Providing information about the participation of others had a negative effect on the number of producers requesting information compared to the control. These results highlight the importance of context in using social influence to change land manager behavior. Findings are relevant to conservation researchers and practitioners, offering applications of behavioral science to improve biodiversity and ecosystem service outcomes on private lands. K E Y W O R D Sbehavioral science, biodiversity conservation, field experiment, forest management, nudge, private lands, social influence, working landscapes

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“…In contrast, words such as 'not all' or 'at most' draw attention to reasons against performing the behavior. Demarque et al (2015) present experimental evidence -using an online shopping interface for buying groceries, with real financial stakes involved -demonstrating that even non-prevailing behavior can be successfully encouraged by providing truthful descriptive norm messages, but systematically framing them in the way described.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The second option has been suggested by Demarque et al (2015): They present evidence that the boomerang effect can be countered by conveying injunctive norms in an implicit manner, to wit, through the sophisticated framing of descriptive norms about minority behavior.…”

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confidence: 99%

Green Nudges: Do They Work? Are They Ethical?

Schubert

2016

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Real-world consumers, though, are motivated by more than incentives and information (Michalek et al. 2015). These are innovative policy tools that are designed with a specific focus on behavioral factors 1 Most economist readers can be assumed to be familiar with the key insights of Behavioral Economics; those interested in the details may be referred to the excellent surveys by Camerer and Loewenstein (2004) and Della Vigna (2009). Van den Bergh et al. (2000) give an outline of behavioral economics insights with a focus on their relevance for environmental economics prior to Nudge. The contributions by Norton et al. (1998) and Söderbaum (1994) are particularly interesting as precursors of the nudge agenda, as they argue that environmental policies should try to exploit endogenous preference change. 2 An important exception to that rule was Jack Knetsch, see, e.g. Knetsch and Sinden (1984), Knetsch (1989 and structured. To nudge someone is to deliberately intervene in a given CA. Nudges are widely regarded as potential complements to more traditional incentive-based regulation; the hope is that adding them to the policy mix may be both more effective and more popular among the general public than relying on traditional regulatory tools alone (Thaler and Sunstein 2008: ch. 12). 6 As Cass Sunstein (2014: 13) puts it, the general aim is to develop "sensible, low-cost policies with close reference to how human beings actually think and behave." There is an important caveat, though: Due to their unclear welfare foundations and the potentially paternalistic and manipulative way in which these tools shape human behavior (viz., by addressing and exploiting cognitive biases), nudges raise complex ethical questions. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayThe exact definition of nudges is a matter of some controversy. What's typically offered as a back-of-the-envelope definition -"interventions that influence people's behavior without significantly changing their monetary incentives or coercing them" -is unhelpful, as it also lets the mere provision of information count as a nudge. We rather suggest to follow Hansen (2016) by supplementing this shorthand with the notion, originally advanced by Thaler and Sunstein (2008: 8) To illustrate, the subsidy and tax schemes discussed by Allcott and Taubinsky (2015) in the context of energy efficiency policy qualify as BEP in our sense of the term. 5 See in particular (ibid.: ch. 12) on green nudging, and Sunstein (201...

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Nudging sustainable consumption: The use of descriptive norms to promote a minority behavior in a realistic online shopping environment

Cited by 185 publications

References 32 publications

How green defaults promote environmentally friendly decisions: Attitude‐conditional default acceptance but attitude‐unconditional effects on actual choices

How green defaults promote environmentally friendly decisions: Attitude‐conditional default acceptance but attitude‐unconditional effects on actual choices

Social influence and forest habitat conservation: Experimental evidence from Vermont's maple producers

Green Nudges: Do They Work? Are They Ethical?

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