Rationalizing Inconsistent Consumer Behavior. Understanding Pathways That Lead to Negative Spillover of Pro-environmental Behaviors in Daily Life

Abstract

Ideally, pro-environmental consumer behavior leads to a lower impact on the environment. However, due to negative behavioral spillovers environmentally friendly behavior could lead to an overall higher environmental impact if subsequent environmentally unfriendly behavior occurs. In this exploratory interview study we focused on two pathways leading to negative spillover: a psychological path (perceived effort, moral licensing) and an economic path (rebound effects). We wanted to gain insight into people’s motivations to behave environmentally unfriendly and to explore people’s level of awareness of both pathways. Our results indicate that pro-environmental behaviors that are associated with higher effort are performed less frequently, and that when people do not perform these behaviors they associate them with higher effort levels. When people perceive behaviors as more effortful they increasingly seem to use arguments to motivate and rationalize why performing the behavior is difficult or impossible. Moreover, we found that although some people can imagine that moral licensing and rebound effects could occur and can provide examples from their own lives, most people assess these concepts as not rational. People seem unaware of the relation between a first pro-environmental behavior (PEB) and a subsequent behavior, and therefore inconsistencies in behavior go unnoticed. As people are good at rationalizing why they do not perform specific PEBs, they in general feel satisfied with their own pro-environmental actions. In order to discourage negative spillovers, we describe a number of approaches and research ideas aimed at taking away the grounds for rationalization.

The impact of personal motivation on perceived effort and performance of pro-environmental behaviors

“…Additionally, our study shows that behaviors can be ranked from easy to difficult and people are more inclined to perform the easy behaviors than the difficult ones. However, in line with our previous findings ( Dreijerink et al, 2021 ), we also find that people who perform a PEB generally assess the behavior as less effortful, as opposed to people who do not perform the same behavior, who do consider it effortful. People indeed adjust their perception of the effort of a PEB.…”

“…In case of PEB, potential motivation stands for a person’s maximally justified effort that is needed to reach their goal of reducing one’s environmental impact. However, we suspect that, in line with a previous qualitative study ( Dreijerink et al, 2021 ), the perception of effort may differ among people. In this study we asked a small sample of participants to score and explain the effort they attributed to several PEBs.…”

“…For example, why the effect of motivation on perceived effort is stronger than the other way around, or what the processes of exaggerating and downplaying may entail. Our previous qualitative study ( Dreijerink et al, 2021 ) showed that when people perceive behaviors as more effortful they increasingly seemed to use arguments to rationalize why performing the behavior is difficult or impossible. It may also be interesting to study rationalizations to perform behaviors that are perceived as easy, or if people may experience internal struggles between pro-environmental and environmentally-unfriendly rationalizations.…”

“…Some items were adjusted to the Dutch situation. For example, prior interviews (see Dreijerink et al, 2021 ) showed that riding a bicycle or taking public transportation to go to work or school were perceived as very different and should therefore not be combined into one item (we have included three mobility items, i.e., items 7, 8, and 9 in Table 1 ). In addition, items were shortened for clarity.…”

Spillover of pro-environmental consumer behavior

“…Instead of choosing the best option, people often choose a good enough option. With regard to the rebound effect, Dreijerink et al (2021) showed that people seem unaware of the rebound effect occurring in their daily life and even label the rebound effect as not rational. Therefore, we argue that, in addition to economic explanations, psychological factors may explain part of why intended energy savings are limited by subsequent behavioral responses.…”