Look at me Saving the Planet! The Imitation of Visible Green Behavior and its Impact on the Climate Value-Action Gap

Abstract

Examining the regional distribution of 15 different Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Practices (MPs) across Australia, we study the tendency for consumers to imitate visible proenvironmental behaviour in their local region. While there is a great deal of variation in the specific type of MPs adopted by consumers located in the same region, ANOVA results suggest that they tend to adopt a similar number of MPs as their neighbours. Using discrete choice modelling, our results suggest that this is due to the peer adoption of certain visible MPs, such as using public transport or car-pooling, encouraging agents to adopt other types of visible MPs. However, the character of this spillover is limited in that visible proenvironmental behaviour does not appear to influence the adoption of non-visible MPs. We also find that social imitation patterns help individuals overcome the observed gap between their stated concern about climate change and their propensity to act on this concern, known as the climate 'value-action' gap. Policy implications are discussed.

Determinants of sustainable consumption in France: the importance of social influence and environmental values

“…Citizens with more options and more time may be those more able to reduce this gap in the direction of more sustainable consumption (Chai et al 2015), since a move in this direction is effortful due to the weight of current habits ( Maréchal and Lazaric 2010). In addition, in their social interactions, citizens are very sensitive to the salience of sustainable goods or practices, and so, when they experience sustainable consumption, they may be more likely to promote visible actions and practices which will communicate their social values and actions to peers (Babutsidze and Chai 2018). Changing consumption patterns should be observed over the long term and policy makers should encourage local experience.…”

“…Given the urgent need to achieve rapid transformation of consumption, some extensions of our work should include investigation of additional variables for local and geographical conditions affecting peer effects. Are some localizations more likely to promote sustainable behavior, as has been shown for the case of Australia (Babutsidze and Chai 2018), and are these clustering effects dependent on and reinforced by the salience of the specific goods and practices?…”

“…For instance, the literature on social influence and sustainability in the household context (see, e.g., Goldsmith and Goldsmith 2011;Welsch and Kühling 2009) suggests the presence of an imitation process and distinctive behaviors according to diverse practices or goods (organic food, green electricity, investments in solar energy systems). Indeed, environmental attitude and social imitation depend largely on the salience and visibility of these different goods (Babutsidze and Chai 2018).…”

Signaling can increase consumers' willingness to pay for green products. Theoretical model and experimental evidence

“…This theory addresses interactions involving asymmetric information: One individual, the sender, seeks to convince another individual, the receiver, that he or she possesses a desired quality; however, this quality is not directly observable (Gambetta, ; Spence, ). Existing research on signaling theory and green consumption suggests that environmentally friendly products are more attractive to consumers when they allow consumers to signal desirable personal traits, such as social status or prosocial values, via product consumption and display, and that signaling can help overcome the attitude–behavior gap (Babutsidze & Chai, ; Iredale & van Vugt, ; Thaler & Sunstein, ; Whitfield, ). In this case, the signaler can gain advantages in social interactions, and these advantages can act as an additional incentive to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products (Berger, ; Griskevicius, Van den Bergh, & Tybur, ; Thaler & Sunstein, ).…”

“…Practitioners can exploit both of these green signaling mechanisms to increase their products' desirability among consumers. This can be done by making green products that are costlier than their nongreen counterparts clearly recognizable as environmentally friendly (Babutsidze & Chai, ; Griskevicius et al, ).…”