Sustainable consumption obtains ever-increasing importance due to pressing social, environmental and economic issues. Extensive research has proposed the use of social norm communication as an effective means to encourage various kinds of pro-environmental behaviour, as well as sustainable consumption. However, although crucial to the development of effective social norm campaigns, tangible evidence for specific processes and conditions through which social norms foster sustainable consumption remains scarce.

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The intention-action gap stands out in research on sustainable consumption for decades. The current research explores the role of socially desirable responding (SDR) in the appearance of this gap by utilising an indirect questioning technique. Two online experiments (n=306 and n=334) demonstrate, in line with most market surveys, that consumers present themselves as highly responsible when being assessed with the standard survey measurement approach (i.e., direct questioning). However, the responses of participants toward the exact same measures of consumers’ social responsibility perceptions and behavioural intentions heavily drop when applying an indirect questioning technique, indicating a substantial overstatement of consumers’ social responsibility perceptions in traditional market surveys. Furthermore, this study provides novel evidence regarding the validity and underlying mechanism of the indirect questioning technique, thereby alleviating long-lasting concerns about this method. Implications for the intention–action gap discussion and consumer ethics research are proposed.

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