Understanding Effectiveness Skepticism

Bolderdijk, Jan Willem; Steg, Linda; Woerdman, Edwin; Frieswijk, René; Groot, Judith I. M. de

doi:10.1509/jppm.16.118

Cited by 17 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…White, Habib, and Hardisty's (2019) SHIFT framework identified five psychological factors-social influence, habit formation, individual self-accounts, feelings and cognition, and tangibility-that can be leveraged in interventions to promote sustainable behaviors. However, researchers also note the potential for obstacles, such as conflicts between sustainable behaviors and private goals (Kronrod, Grinstein, and Wathieu 2012), as well as skepticism, lack of support, or perceptions of unfairness (Bolderdijk et al 2017).…”

Section: Behavioral Approaches To Sustainability Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“How Do I Carry All This Now?” Understanding Consumer Resistance to Sustainability Interventions

Gonzalez-Arcos¹,

Joubert²,

Scaraboto³

et al. 2021

Journal of Marketing

111

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Given the increasingly grave environmental crisis, governments and organizations frequently initiate sustainability interventions to encourage sustainable behavior in individual consumers. However, prevalent behavioral approaches to sustainability interventions often have the unintended consequence of generating consumer resistance and undermining their effectiveness. With a practice-theoretical perspective, the authors investigate what generates consumer resistance and how it can be reduced, using consumer responses to a nationwide ban on plastic bags in Chile in 2019. The findings show that consumer resistance to sustainability interventions emerges not primarily because consumers are unwilling to change their individual behavior, as commonly assumed by existing literature. Instead, consumer resistance emerges because the individual behaviors being targeted are embedded in dynamic social practices. When sustainability interventions aim to change individual behaviors, rather than social practices, they place excessive responsibility on consumers, unsettle their practice-related emotionality, and destabilize the multiple practices that interconnect to shape consumers’ lives, ultimately leading to resistance. The authors propose a theory of consumer resistance in social practice change that explains why consumer resistance to sustainability interventions emerges, including how it distracts, discourages, and delays the required social practice change. They also offer recommendations for policymakers and social marketers in designing and managing sustainability initiatives that trigger less consumer resistance and therefore foster sustainable consumer behavior.

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Section: Behavioral Approaches To Sustainability Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“How Do I Carry All This Now?” Understanding Consumer Resistance to Sustainability Interventions

Gonzalez-Arcos¹,

Joubert²,

Scaraboto³

et al. 2021

Journal of Marketing

111

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Lastly, perceptions of the measure's effectiveness, or the extent to which a policy instrument is expected to achieve the aims it is introduced to achieve, is interlinked with an individual's policy support in several ways. Some studies note the negative correlation between perceptions of ineffectiveness and support for a policy measure (Jagers & Hammar, 2009;Kallbekken & Saelen, 2011), but it can also be the case that individuals find a policy to be unattractive and therefore view it as ineffective (Bolderdijk et al, 2017). Secondly, there is ample evidence that, in particular for more coercive measures, perceived effectiveness is linked to perceived fairness.…”

Section: The Necessity Of Policy Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public support for aviation policy measures in Sweden

2020

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Air travel has received increasing attention in the climate debate in recent years. Current climate policy in this sector remains weak in comparison to, for example, the road transport sector. In this study, we analyze public support for seven different national policy measures that have been chosen to reflect the main thinking raised in the debate. Using original data from Sweden (N = 4500), we found that less coercive measures, as well as regulatory measures targeting the aviation industry rather than individuals directly, are more readily supported by the public than market-based policies aiming to push individuals away from air travel. The analyses of the different policy measures reveal many similarities between them. Climate concern, a personal norm to act in a more climate-friendly way, a political orientation to the left and high levels of institutional trust all display strong associations with support for all the different policy types. Perceptions of fairness, in particular, and effectiveness were strongly associated with overall policy support. Interestingly, however, the extent to which a policy measure was expected to affect one's own personal freedom was found to have a very weak correlation with policy support. Key policy insights. Public support was higher for 'pull' policies (climate labelling and subsidies for high-speed and night trains), as well as for regulatory measures targeting the aviation industry (biofuel blending mandate), than for policies that aim to push individuals away from air travel (e.g. air passenger tax). . The weakest public support was found for frequent flyer taxation and personal carbon allowances. One reason, however, may be that these are novel policy options where the respondents had little prior information. . In line with previous research, climate concern, ideology and trust in institutions correlate with attitudes to aviation polices, but the multivariate model showed that perceptions of whether a policy is fair and effective were by far the most important variables. Hence, fairness and effectiveness appear to be crucial aspects for the design of new policies.

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“…Finally, the last two articles in the special section explore what factors determine support for specific proenvironmental policies. Bolderdijk et al (2017) do so by exploring aspects of the policy itself, while Johnson et al (2017) do so by exploring how an individual difference—representation of God—impacts consumer willingness to vote for proenvironmental policies. Both articles take a more long-term focus on the environmental context.…”

Section: The Intersection Of Environmental Sustainability Marketingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bolderdijk et al (2017) focus on why policies designed to mitigate environmental harm often lack public support, one such reason being skepticism about the policies’ effectiveness. These authors propose that merely countering such skepticism may be ineffective at increasing public support for these policies because doing so may not address the more fundamental reason for such skepticism, which is “that a policy is perceived [to be] personally unattractive or unfair” (Bolderdijk et al 2017, p. 359). Bolderdijk et al therefore propose a novel causal ordering in which personal aversion to a policy can result in motivated skepticism about its effectiveness, reducing support for the policy.…”

Section: The Intersection Of Environmental Sustainability Marketingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Intersection of Sustainability, Marketing, and Public Policy: Introduction to the Special Section on Sustainability

Iyer

Reczek

2017

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

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In this introduction to the special section on sustainability, the authors propose two primary factors that can help characterize past research in marketing on sustainability. The first of these factors, the research objective, has two dimensions: mitigate versus create and short-term versus long-term focus. To mitigate (vs. create) implies that the objective of the research is to understand factors whose reduction (enhancement) would have a positive impact on sustainability. Short- versus long-term focus describes the fact that the research objective can be to impact an immediate behavior related to sustainability or can be focused on longer-term drivers or consequences of such behaviors. The second factor, research context, can have multiple dimensions, although much of the past and current research on sustainability has been conducted in four contexts: environmental, nonenvironmental, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business. The authors first review past literature in light of this framework and then discuss the articles in the special section. They close with a discussion of where researchers interested in studying the intersection of sustainability, marketing, and public policy can go from here.

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Understanding Effectiveness Skepticism

Cited by 17 publications

References 45 publications

“How Do I Carry All This Now?” Understanding Consumer Resistance to Sustainability Interventions

“How Do I Carry All This Now?” Understanding Consumer Resistance to Sustainability Interventions

Public support for aviation policy measures in Sweden

The Intersection of Sustainability, Marketing, and Public Policy: Introduction to the Special Section on Sustainability

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