The Impact of Flight Shame on
Air Travel Behaviour
Reducing air travel from a consumer behaviour perspective, considering the possible role of carbon offsetting and positive cueing
Master Thesis Marketing Management
June 28, 2020
By
IRIS DE VRIES
Student number 2686627
Oude Kijk in ’t Jatstraat 22D
9712 EH Groningen
+31630398717
i.p.y.de.vries@student.rug.nl
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ABSTRACT
While the phenomenon of flight shame has become all the more popular over the years, a decrease in the amount of air travel is still lacking, aside from current Coronavirus effects. Moreover, until date very little is known about the possible influence of flight shame on consumer behaviour. In this paper, a conceptual model was developed in which carbon offsetting was expected to decrease a choice preference for environmentally friendly substitutes for air travel, due to an effect of moral licensing. Anticipated flight shame in this model was expected to mediate the influence of carbon offsetting on travel mode choice, in the sense that higher levels of anticipated flight shame would sooner lead to a choice preference for the environmentally friendly travel option. Furthermore, a moderating positive cueing effect was added, which was expected to strengthen people’s pro-environmental self-identity and, in this way, outbalance the carbon offsetting effects. Despite the fact that all three hypotheses were rejected, this research provided evidence that anticipated flight shame increases preferences for the environmentally friendly travel mode choice. Additionally, positive cueing was found to indeed strengthen people’s perceived pro-environmental self-identity, leading sooner to the environmentally friendly travel mode choice. Lastly, pro-environmental self-identity was also found to be a factor increasing anticipated flight shame.
Keywords: flight shame, carbon offsetting, moral licensing, positive cueing, spillover effect,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... 2
1. INTRODUCTION ... 4
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 7
2.1 Travel mode choice ... 7
2.2 Anticipated flight shame as a potential driver of environmentally friendly travel choices ... 8
2.3 Voluntary carbon offsetting ... 10
2.4 Positive cueing as a potential driver of environmentally friendly travel choices ... 12
3. CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESES ... 14
3.1 Conceptual model ... 14
3.2 Effect of carbon offsetting on travel mode choice ... 16
3.3 Moderating effect of positive cueing on travel mode choice ... 17
3.4 Mediating effect of anticipated flight shame on travel mode choice ... 18
4. METHODOLOGY ... 20
4.1 Participants and procedure ... 20
4.2 Independent variable: carbon offsetting ... 20
4.3 Moderator: positive cueing through perceived self-identity ... 20
4.4 Mediator: feelings of anticipated flight shame ... 22
4.5 Dependent variable: travel mode choice ... 22
4.6 Manipulation checks ... 23
5. RESULTS ... 24
5.1 Descriptives ... 24
5.2 Effect of carbon offsetting on travel mode choice ... 25
5.3 Moderating effect of positive cueing on travel mode choice ... 25
5.4 Mediating effect of anticipated flight shame on travel mode choice ... 26
5.5 Manipulation checks ... 27
5.6 Additional analyses with pro-environmental self-identity ... 28
6. DISCUSSION ... 29
7. CONCLUSION ... 31
8. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS ... 33
9. LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ... 34
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1. INTRODUCTION
Since the mid-20th century, human activities have had a dramatic impact on global warming.
Transport in particular plays a significant role in global warming, accounting for 23% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The transport sector also grows the fastest of all energy consuming sectors(Hickman et al., 2010). Within this sector, aviation has surpassed the car in popularity when it comes to travelling to foreign destinations in general, as calculated for 2019 by NBTC-NIPO, a Dutch research organization (Ammelrooy, 2020). However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has severely decreased air traffic, due to global lock-down strategies aimed at combatting the epidemic wave (Iacus et al., 2020). The duration and the long-term consequences on air travel of this Coronavirus outbreak are not yet known and are therefore not taken into account in this paper.
What is known, however, is that air travel has a significant impact on climate change, as it is the most energy-intensive transport mode of all. The environmental impact is even more harmful due to the fact that greenhouse gasses are directly released into the upper atmosphere, where the damage done is even greater than on the ground (Morten et al., 2018). Moreover, air travel is the dominant transport mode in international tourism, used by 54% of all tourists (Gössling, 2018). It was expected that by 2050 air travel will produce emissions that amount to 15% to 40% of global CO2 (Higham et al., 2014). These growing air travel trends are estimated
to cause an increase in global emissions of 170% between 2010 and 2050 (Gössling and Peeters, 2015).
Previous numbers about the increasing environmental impact of air travel show that a reduction until date has been hard to obtain. As illustrated above, air travel does not seem to be compatible with goals to minimize climate change and other nuisance caused by aviation such as noise and pollution. The increasing amount of air travel poses a challenge for the Sustainable Development Goal of Climate Action of the United Nations (UN, 2015), and contradicts the Paris Agreement (Gössling et al., 2019). Hence, it is rather valuable to know how air travelling can be decreased.
5 Sufficient consumer motivation is therefore still lacking to limit individual air travel behaviour (Morten et al., 2018). One reason for this widespread reluctance for behavioural change regarding leisure air travel is that people simply view it as a right to fly for going on holiday (Barr et al., 2010). Other factors that hinder the needed behavioural change are the growth of low-cost airlines and, as a result, the growing consumption of cheap aviation (Higham et al., 2014).
The convenience and affordability of aviation make it hard for people to switch to better alternatives in terms of sustainability. Besides, environmentally friendly alternatives for flying are often less convenient and practical (Mkono, 2020). Behavioural change is also in general a challenge for people, especially when breaking with habitual behaviour, as people feel a natural tendency to resist change, even when their attitudes alter. This is known as the “attitude-behaviour gap” or the “flyers dilemma” (Cocolas et al., 2020). In other words, there is an urgent need to investigate how, despite all impeding factors, air travel behaviour can be changed. With regard to fighting climate change, it is recognized that behavioural change is needed in order to significantly reduce air travel emissions (Gössling et al., 2015).
One promising factor, which stems from behavioural theories, that could be used to induce pro-environmental behaviour is that people have a natural tendency to be consistent. In the light of reducing air travel behaviour, a high potential solution would be to see if people can be further tied to their pro-environmental aspirations, fostering a sustainable travel choice at the expense of flying. Theories about this so-called “positive cueing” or “social labelling” have been popular in sustainability psychology (Cornelissen et al., 2007; Van der Werff et al., 2014; Cook et al., 2002; Lacasse, 2016). However, these theories have not been applied to flying behaviour yet, which forms a bright opportunity to induce choices for more environmentally friendly travel mode choices.
6 With regard to the reassuring potential of flight shaming, it is relevant to know how flight shaming exactly influences air travel behaviour. Because of its recent emergence no research has been conducted yet about the effect of flight shaming on actual air travel behaviour.
Another phenomenon that is partially linked to the flight shaming movement, is the increasing number of airlines that offer the possibility of offsetting carbon emissions. The number of people choosing to offset their pollution caused by air travel is rising (Oers, 2017). For instance, KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) saw a 50% increase in people compensating their CO2 in 2018
compared to 2017 (KLM, 2018). However, carbon offsetting might also, through moral licensing, trick people into thinking they already do enough to compensate for the environment, leading to increased flying behaviour (Gholamzadehmir et al., 2019). For an aspired reduction in air travel, it is thus also interesting to know about the relationship between carbon offsetting and air travel behaviour.
All in all, this research attempts to investigate what relationship there is, if any, between carbon offsetting and flight shaming, and how this eventually affects one’s travel mode choice. In addition to this, the possible role of positive cueing will be investigated. Therefore, the following research question has been formulated: “How does flight shame affect travel mode choice preferences?” Furthermore, it is essential to know: “How can carbon offsetting affect the travel mode choice through flight shame?” And lastly: “Can positive cueing encourage an environmentally friendly travel mode choice and decrease the effect of carbon offsetting?”
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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Travel mode choice
Eventually, a substantial decrease in the amount of air travel can only be achieved when there are suitable alternatives, as the amount of travel itself will most probably continue to grow anyway. Therefore, it is imperative to know which choice of travel mode is actually more environmentally friendly than flying. A new less known trend that is closely related to flight shame and that also originated from Sweden is called “train brag” (tågskryt), which entails an encouragement to travel by train instead of by airplane (Mkono, 2020). But as train brag is not as widely spread yet, first comparisons between the train and air travel should be reviewed in this research in order to draw conclusions about which travel mode choice really is the most suitable environmentally friendly substitute for flying.
The increasing accessibility of High Speed Trains over the years has made it all the more attractive to sometimes prefer the rails as opposed to flying, especially when travelling to cities closer to home (Matteo and Laura, 2018). Regarding the relative advantages of High Speed Trains compared to air travel, Glusac (2019) illustrated six cases of city to city travel in the United States. In three of those cases (Los Angeles to San Diego, Seattle to Vancouver and New York City to Washington), taking the train saves a person both time and money compared to flying. In two of the other cases the train also either saves you money or travel time as opposed to air travel on the same routes. In any event, it can safely be assumed that High Speed Trains and trains in general sometimes offer advantages compared to air travel when it comes to time and money, but it is crucial to see if the same can be said for the environmental dimension.
Fortunately, regarding the whole ‘‘train versus airplane’’ discussion in terms of environmental considerations, there exists a fair amount of research already. Matteo and Laura (2018) also find that their results confirm ‘‘a remarkable advantage of High Speed Trains compared to aviation, with regard to direct CO2 emissions per passenger kilometres.’’ Also, Givoni (2007)
8 Furthermore, de Bruijn et al. (2010) researched the differences between travel modes and their carbon emissions for Dutch holidays, and also found evidence for air travel to be relatively unsustainable. For instance, intercontinental long-haul flights on holidays on average produced more than 200% additional CO2 emissions compared to average Dutch holidays, and air travel
holidays in general also amounted to 102% extra carbon emissions. Moreover, outbound holidays per train beat the air travel holidays in environmental terms by producing 55% less carbon emissions than average Dutch holidays.
All of this points to the fact that, in any case for relatively short trips and perhaps as well for longer journeys, taking the train definitely saves emissions when compared to flying according to current literature. Therefore, one might argue, pro-environmental people or at least people who would like to view themselves in this way, would rather be attracted to taking the train for short trips instead of the airplane. Specifically, it is interesting to see whether people who experience more flight shame would in this case also opt for the more environmentally friendly train instead of flying.
2.2 Anticipated flight shame as a potential driver of environmentally friendly travel choices To investigate the flight shaming movement and its potential to change people’s flying behaviour, it is necessary to know where it came from and what we know about it. Flight shame is a phenomenon that emerged originally in Sweden in 2018 from environmental movements (Mkono, 2020). Known as ‘‘flygskam’’ in Sweden, flight shame as defined by Benischke (2019) involves emotions of shame and guilt regarding the unfavourable environmental effects caused by flying. Being a ‘‘flight shamer’’ can therefore entail choosing to quit flying and in some cases even joining activist movements to persuade other people to follow their lead (Appel et al., 2019). Mkono (2020) concluded that the flight shaming movement leads to, at least for some people, the reconsideration of their travel choice behaviour. This can either be caused by a better understanding of the problems associated with flying, or through social desirability.
9 While shame might, in this case, appear as a retrospective emotion, there is also a possibility that shame already arises before one even engages in a particular action or choice. This type of emotion is called ‘‘anticipated shame’’, as defined by Patrick et al. (2009) and Tangney and Dearing (2002). Specifically, anticipated shame already arises when a person merely thinks about undertaking an action that could threaten the self-concept, rather than during the action itself or retrospectively.
Despite the fact that some researchers treat the concepts of shame and guilt synonymously, an important distinction between shame and guilt was indicated by the paper of Amatulli et al. (2019), which states that shame and guilt are evoked by different appraisals and induce different coping mechanisms. According to Tangney and Dearing (2002), guilt refers to a negative feeling about an action, which does not threaten the self-concept, whereas shame does lead to a negative judgment about the self. Following this reasoning, it was concluded by Amatulli et al. (2019) that guilt was not able to elicit pro-environmental behaviour, whereas anticipated shame did significantly induce pro-environmental behaviour, because of the coping mechanism corresponding with shame.
The emotion of shame, whether anticipated or felt afterwards, can be countered according to Tangney and Dearing (2002) in two ways. Firstly, one might cease to engage in actions that caused feelings of shame in the first place. This is also in line with findings of Escadas et al. (2019), who argue that anticipated shame exerts the greatest influence on decisions that consumers make in ethical dilemmas, which in turn leads to individuals ‘‘avoiding feeling bad’’ and in this case choosing more sustainable travel modes. Lastly, people may adopt pro-environmental behaviour and corresponding activities to actually ‘‘repair’’ the shame they experience.
10 2.3 Voluntary carbon offsetting
Gössling et al. (2015) point out that carbon offsetting is seen as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a result of air travel. According to Gössling et al. (2009), the option of carbon offsetting in the aviation sector entails compensating one’s flying emissions by investing in a pro-environmental project or sector. Examples of these types of investments can be renewable energy, planting trees or energy efficiency. This type of carbon compensation is regarded as ‘‘voluntary carbon offsetting’’ i.e. consumers have a choice whether or not to compensate for their emissions when choosing to fly (Gössling et al., 2009).
While voluntary carbon offsetting can be viewed as a positive phenomenon to counter climate change, there are certain doubts about the technical effectiveness of neutralizing carbon emissions (Gössling et al., 2009). Besides, people have various reasons not to compensate for their own greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, people might hold governments and airlines responsible for decreasing air travel emissions, rather than themselves (Gössling et al., 2009).
Regarding the relationship between knowledge of carbon offsetting and consumer behaviour, Polonsky et al. (2012) found that as consumers become more knowledgeable about the possibilities of carbon offsetting and about the environment in general, they tend to be more likely to actually make use of opportunities such as carbon compensation. However, only 14.5% of the members of the International Air Transport Association provide carbon offsetting options to their customers (Gössling et al., 2015). Therefore, there is still considerable potential for additional carbon offsetting practices.
Gössling et al. (2009), Choi and Ritchie (2014) and Hyams and Fawcett (2013) research the phenomenon of carbon offsetting as well, but specifically within the air travel industry. Gössling et al. (2009) research the awareness of consumers about the possibilities of carbon offsetting, as illustrated above. Choi and Ritchie (2014) look at the willingness-to-pay of consumers for carbon compensation, and they calculate how much consumers are willing to pay per ton of CO2 reduced. The authors find that renewable energy projects in developing
countries offer the best possibilities for carbon offsetting. Hyams and Fawcett (2013) review the ethics of carbon offsetting schemes and find that reasons for disagreements from an ethical perspective mostly relate to the actual benefits of offsetting.
11 In the pilot study of this research, a list of 19 pro-environmental actions was tested among a small sample of 29 participants. One of these 19 environment-related actions was: “Have you ever offset your flight emissions?”. Next, the study took the five most frequently reported pro-environmental actions and the five least frequently pro-pro-environmental actions of this pilot study to conduct the research. Unfortunately, in the end, the activity of carbon offsetting was not included in the experiment to investigate a potential moral licensing or moral cleansing effect.
A clear example a moral licensing effect was the research of Schultz et al. (2007) about household energy consumption. When participants were told that they consumed less energy than their neighbours, this induced a significant increase in their household energy consumption. In the same way, participants decreased their recycling behaviour after being told that their grocery shopping was more environmentally friendly than others (Longoni et al., 2014). Furthermore, after participants had the opportunity to sign a pro-environmental online petition, they were less likely to participate in another pro-environmental action (Schumann and Klein, 2015).
Khan and Dhar (2007) investigated the moral licensing effect in a study where participants only imagined that they helped others. After imagining that they helped others, participants were offered the possibility to donate any of the $2 they obtained by participating in the research to charity. Due to the moral licensing effect, participants who had imagined that they helped others donated significantly less to charity than people who did not imagine any generous acts. Later experiments with snacks lead to similar outcomes, where the licensing effect was linked to a reduction of guilty feelings about more self-indulgent choices (Khan and Dhar, 2007).
12 2.4 Positive cueing as a potential driver of environmentally friendly travel choices
In contrast to the possible licensing effect of carbon offsetting, convincing research in psychological theory demonstrated a link between positive cueing and pro-environmental behaviour through the strengthening of an environmental self-identity (Van der Werff et al., 2013; Cornelissen et al., 2008). A clear definition of environmental self-identity is “the extent to which people see themselves as an environmentally friendly person” (Van der Werff et al., 2014).
Multiple researchers have attempted to define the concept of self-identity in general. For instance, according to Bem (1972), self-identity can be described as ‘‘knowing ourselves through observing our own behaviours and making an attribution as to whether a behaviour is due to internal versus external causes.’’ Whitmarsh and O’Neill (2010) state that self-identity “refers to a person’s sense of self.” There also exists an idea that defines self-identity as a label, known as positive cueing or social labelling, which can be used as a behavioural instrument to influence consumer choices (Cornelissen et al., 2007; Allen, 1982). For instance, findings of Cook et al. (2002) state that the perceived environmentally friendly self-identity that a person adopts is in fact an adequate predictor of future environmental behaviour.
Cornelissen et al. (2008) explain positive cueing as the practice of cueing behaviour in order to increase people’s perception of themselves as pro-environmental persons, thereby inducing these persons to also behave pro-environmentally in the future. An extensive body of research demonstrated this effect, also known as the positive spillover effect, where past pro-environmental behaviour induces consistent pro-environmentally friendly-behaviour. For instance, Thøgersen and Ölander (2003) showed this regarding Danish consumer behaviour finding that positive cueing enlarges the chance that people view themselves as pro-environmental, and that this leads to more environmental behaviour in the future. Moreover, research of Cornelissen et al. (2008) yielded similar results with respect to sustainable product choices.
13 Examples of such environmental actions are energy saving, reusing resources and environmentally friendly shopping behaviour (Whitmarsh and O’Neill, 2010; Gatersleben et al., 2012; Nigbur et al., 2010). Also, Lacasse (2016) finds that people who are labelled as an environmentalist strengthened their environmental self-identity. In a more general manner, Kraut (1973), Strenta and Dejong (1981), Goldman et al. (1982) and Burger and Caldwell (2017) suggest that people who were environmentally labelled were more inclined to act in a consistent way with that label.
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3. CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESES
3.1 Conceptual model
The following Conceptual Model, as portrayed in Figure 1 below, was formed based on the Theoretical Framework. The Conceptual Model was developed to investigate the influence of the most prominent factors on travel choice behaviour, with the underlying goal of encouraging people to fly less.
Flight shame was assigned a prominent role in this model as a mediator because this relatively new concept only emerged in 2018, but it is already indicated as having one of the highest potentials to reduce air travel behaviour (Topham, 2019). Due to its very recent emergence, the construct of flight shame has not been explored in a scientific manner yet, but relevant research of Amatulli et al. (2019) on anticipated shame indicated a potential effect on pro-environmental choice behaviour. Furthermore, evidence about the coping mechanisms related to feelings of shame has been provided to explain why anticipated shame in specific and not guilt could induce pro-environmental behaviour (Tangney and Dearing, 2002; Amatulli et al., 2019).
Additionally, carbon offsetting was included in the Conceptual Model as the independent variable, because it is often mentioned to be an important factor in the flight shaming movement (Gössling et al., 2019). Carbon offsetting is, like flight shame, a recently emerging and rapidly growing occurrence (Oers, 2017). However, contrary to flight shame, carbon offsetting could have a reversed effect when it comes to discouraging flying, through a possible effect of moral licensing (Gholamzadehmir et al., 2019). Moral licensing, sometimes indicated as a negative spillover effect is a prominent theory from behavioural sciences where a good deed can free someone to engage in a subsequent bad deed, which has proven to be rather influential in combination with pro-environmental behaviour (Miller and Effron, 2010; Khan and Dhar, 2007).
15 Hence, especially a combination of moral licensing and positive cueing as a moderator, both supporting an opposite spillover effect, could lead to surprising results. The manipulation of positive cueing, through perceived pro-environmental self-identity in a similar way as research of Van der Werff et al. (2014), was included as a moderator to serve as a possible counterforce for a licensing effect of carbon offsetting. Linked to carbon offsetting, it would be rather valuable to know if the extensive research supporting a positive spillover effect through positive cueing (Van der Werff et al., 2014; Cornelissen et al., 2008; Gholamzadehmir et al., 2019) in reality would turn out to decrease a possible moral licensing effect.
In the Conceptual Model, travel mode choice was included as the dependent variable. More specifically in this paper, travel mode choice represents two options: the airplane and the High Speed Train. This simplified choice was opted for because the High Speed Train was indicated as the best environmentally friendly alternative for short trips (Matteo and Laura, 2018; Givoni, 2007). In addition, the Swedish term “train brag” emerged as a result of the flight shaming movement (Mkono, 2020).
In conclusion, the Conceptual Model shows a moderated mediation model, where travel mode choice is indirectly influenced by the possibility of carbon offsetting. The moderator can manipulate individuals through positive cueing, which is expected to decrease the possible moral licensing effect of carbon offsetting on the environmentally friendly travel mode choice. Feelings of anticipated flight shame are expected to mediate the relationship between the possibility of carbon offsetting on the environmentally friendly travel mode choice. In the following section the reasoning behind the hypotheses, corresponding with the Conceptual Model, will be further elaborated.
16 3.2 Effect of carbon offsetting on travel mode choice
In the Theoretical Framework, a gap in research was indicated concerning the relation between the option to fly carbon neutral and travel mode choice. The psychological concept called “moral licensing” can serve to predict the missing link between carbon offsetting and flying behaviour. In this subsection the theory of moral licensing will be further explained, and an expectation and hypothesis will be formulated.
Moral licensing can explain how the option of carbon offsetting could induce a feeling of being morally allowed to fly. Moral licensing is the effect that someone who participated in a particular act of moral behaviour is given a “license” to disengage in subsequent moral behaviour (Gholamzadehmir et al., 2019). In other words, people feel that they did something good, which earns them “moral credit” to thereafter do something bad. Having a moral license means that people have the feeling that they are free to act without discrediting themselves (Miller and Effron, 2010). Therefore, moral licensing can reduce motivation to participate in following pro-environmental behaviour (Conway and Peetz, 2012). Merritt et al. (2010) indeed argue that good deeds “make people feel secure in their moral self-regard.”
Deriving from moral licensing, ‘‘moral cleansing’’ motivates people after discreditable behaviour to afterwards behave in a positive way to morally compensate for the bad behaviour. This follows the same line of reasoning of people’s tendency to balance their moral self-concept by earning or losing credentials with positive or negative behaviour (Gholamzadehmir et al., 2019). Applied to a consumer choice, this moral cleansing effect could lead to consumers choosing the pro-environmental travel option, in case they were not given an opportunity to do something good beforehand to balance out their moral self-regard.
In this research, it is expected that the option to fly carbon neutral can increase a preference for flying, where people balance out the negative impact of flying by carbon offsetting, through moral licensing. When people are not offered the option to fly carbon neutral, it is expected that they will choose a more environmentally friendly travel mode choice, because they did not have a chance to earn moral credentials in the first place to compensate for the negative environmental impact of flying. Hence, they will adopt a higher preference for the environmentally friendly travel mode option. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H1: When people have the option of carbon offsetting, they will be less inclined to
17 3.3 Moderating effect of positive cueing on travel mode choice
According to the Theoretical Framework, people’s environmental self-identity is often an important predictor for subsequent pro-environmental behaviour, which can be strengthened through positive cueing (Cornelissen et al., 2007; Van der Werff et al., 2014; Lacasse, 2016; Cook et al., 2002). The theory explaining this behaviour is called “moral consistency” and entails that people have a natural tendency to behave consistently, in order to prevent a possible threat to their desired self-view (Gholamzadehmir et al., 2019). According to the classical “cognitive dissonance theory” (Festinger, 1957), people will feel unpleasant when they behave inconsistently. The phenomenon that past common environmentally friendly behaviour can consequently lead to pro-environmental behaviour is known as the “positive spillover effect” (Thøgersen and Crompton, 2009).
However, this moral consistency does not always occur. Research about moral licensing, as previously mentioned in this paper, demonstrated that in some cases past pro-environmental actions can actually inhibit future pro-environmental actions (Mazar and Zhong, 2010). This can be seen as quite the opposite from the positive spillover effect. It is rather intriguing to know when past pro-environmental behaviour promotes consistent pro-environmental actions, and when they hinder subsequent pro-environmental actions (Thøgersen and Crompton, 2009).
In order to predict whether the effect of positive cueing would change the possible moral licensing effect of carbon offsetting, research of Thøgersen and Ölander (2003) gives insight that the positive spillover effect was more influential for people with stronger pro-environmental norms. Applied to the flight shaming movement where increased awareness can strengthen people’s pro-environmental norms, this could form a potential explanation for a moderating effect of positive cueing in combination with carbon offsetting. The combination of positive cueing and moral licensing was not studied before, because previous research focused on either positive or negative cueing (Nilsson et al., 2017).
18 To summarise, through research about positive cueing that strengthens the environmental self-concept, it is expected for this paper that a positive spillover effect can decrease possible moral licensing effects. When participants will be exposed to common environmentally friendly behaviours, this positive cueing effect is expected to lead to a boosted pro-environmental self-concept, and consequently, this can outbalance a negative spillover effect of carbon offsetting. This leads us to the second hypothesis:
H2: The effect of positive cueing decreases the effect of carbon offsetting on an
environmentally friendly travel mode choice.
3.4 Mediating effect of anticipated flight shame on travel mode choice
As stated in the Conceptual Framework, individuals can be subject to anticipated shame, which entails experiencing the feelings of shame before even undertaking an action, such as flying to a destination as opposed to using more sustainable travel options such as the High Speed Train (Amatulli et al., 2019). Furthermore, overall previous research suggests that negative moral emotions, such as anticipated flight shame in this case, in general can lead to pro-environmental behaviour or reactions (Allpress et al., 2014; Böhm, 2003; Mallett, 2012; Onwezen et al., 2013; Rees and Bamberg, 2014).
The theory behind the expectation that anticipated shame can induce pro-environmental behaviour is that people have a natural coping mechanism to restore their self-concept, if this was threatened by feelings of shame (Tangney and Dearing, 2002). This can already occur before the shameful action leading to shame has taken place, when people are merely imagining they would partake in an action with the potential to threaten the self (Patrick et al., 2009).
This implies that if people experience anticipated flight shame because of the negative environmental effects of flying, according to existing literature they would rather avoid the flight and opt for an alternative sustainable mode of travel to evade their shameful feelings (Tangney and Dearing, 2002; Escadas et al., 2019; Amatulli et al., 2019).
In this way they do not have to experience shameful emotions, which allows them to maintain a positive self-concept when they choose a more environmentally friendly travel mode choice rather than a choice that would lead to feelings of flight shame.
19 At the same time, from previous reasoning with regard to carbon offsetting, it can be expected that the possibility of carbon offsetting is likely to decrease the feelings of anticipated flight shame. This makes it more attractive to fly instead of taking the train, and also this can be done without being hindered by feelings of anticipated flight shame, which brings us to the final hypothesis:
H3: When people have the option of carbon offsetting, they will be less inclined to
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4. METHODOLOGY
4.1 Participants and procedure
For this research, in total 275 respondents of different age groups voluntarily participated in the study. For extra motivation to complete the questionnaire, the respondents were informed that they had a chance at winning a free painting if they completed the questionnaire. The participants were reached online through social media channels, and contained fellow students, acquaintances, family and friends. Because 27 participants did not complete the whole questionnaire, they were removed from the study. In total, data from 248 participants was included in the study. The objective of the research was mentioned as a research about travel choice behaviour. Each of the participants was randomly assigned to one of the four conditions with positive cueing, negative cueing, carbon offsetting and no carbon offsetting.
4.2 Independent variable: carbon offsetting
The next step in the experiment was offering part of the participants the option of carbon offsetting for their flying trip. In this research, half of the participants were offered the option of carbon offsetting, while the other half of respondents were not given the option to offset the carbon emissions of their imaginary trip. In this way the effect of the option of carbon offsetting on travel choice could be clearly distinguished. Information on carbon offsetting was provided to the respondents, from the website of KLM (KLM, 2020). To be specific, participants were exposed to the following information:
Furthermore, in case the participants chose the flying option, they were asked to indicate if they would choose to compensate the CO2 emissions of their flight for an additional fee.
4.3 Moderator: positive cueing through perceived self-identity
21 This paper followed the same methodology to measure the extent to which one perceives oneself as a sustainable individual. The set of common environmental behaviours are relatable enough for people to recognize them, while the set of uncommon environmental behaviours are more extreme and less relatable for most individuals. For instance, certain common environmental behaviour can be separating paper from waste, while an uncommon environmental behaviour for example entails being a vegetarian or eating less meat in general.
In other words, there is a larger chance that people will match with the common environmental behaviours than the uncommon environmental behaviours. Hence, the common environmental behaviour group can be viewed as the ‘‘environmentally friendly’’ group, while the uncommon environmental behaviour group can be seen as the ‘‘environmentally unfriendly’’ group. In this way the effect of positive cueing, which is tricking individuals into perceiving themselves as pro-environmental, can be clearly differentiated when compared to the group that perceives themselves as non- or less pro-environmental. Each set of environmental behaviours was assigned to a certain group of individuals, who indicated the frequency of each specific behaviour on a 1 to 7 scale.
The set of common environmental behaviours is as follows:
22 4.4 Mediator: feelings of anticipated flight shame
In order to measure the relationship between flight shame and the choice of travel mode, this paper chose anticipated shame as the variable to measure flight shame, as mentioned in the previous section. This paper adopted the methodology used by Amatulli et al. (2019), who also specifically assess feelings of anticipated shame in their research. Essentially, the authors proposed three statements to the respondents that encapsulate the emotion of anticipated shame: ‘‘I feel ashamed’’, ‘‘I feel embarrassed’’, and ‘‘I feel humiliated’’. Consequently, the respondents had to indicate on a scale ranging from 1 to 7 in what matter they agreed or disagreed with the propositions.
Based on Amatulli et al (2019), this research has put forward the following statements to participants, after which respondents could indicate on a scale from 1 to 7 how much they agreed with these propositions:
1. I feel ashamed of flying.
2. I feel embarrassed about flying.
3. I feel humiliated when thinking of flying.
4.5 Dependent variable: travel mode choice
After going through the previous steps in this section, the participants were offered the choice of travel mode. Specifically, the respondents had to choose between flying from Brussels to London for their trip or taking the High Speed Train from Brussels to London.
The choice was offered to the participants in the following way:
“Now imagine that all Coronavirus problems are solved and Covid-19 was only a memory from the past, so everyone is allowed to travel freely again.
You really want to make a trip from Brussels to London next October.
After looking at all different travel websites, you find two available travel options for exactly the same price (€ 57).
You can either choose to fly directly from Brussels to London Heathrow or take the High Speed Train directly from Brussels to London St. Pancras (the centre of London).”
23 4.6 Manipulation checks
Consequently, to view what the results are of the manipulation illustrated above on individuals, it should be measured to what extent people perceive themselves as pro-environmental. Van der Werff et al. (2014) conducted a similar study as described above, and after the manipulation phase the authors exposed the participants to three statements relating to environmental self-identity. Van der Werff et al. (2014) adapted this from previous research (Fielding et al., 2008), because this proved to be a valid measure. For this paper, the same methodology was incorporated. Again, individuals could respond on a scale from 1 to 7.
The three environmental self-identity statements are as follows: 1. Acting pro-environmentally is an important part of who I am.
2. I am the type of person who acts in an environmentally-friendly way. 3. I see myself as an environmentally-friendly person.
These propositions were applied to each of the groups after they responded to the two sets of environmental behaviours described previously.
24
5. RESULTS
5.1 Descriptives
The number of participants in each condition was relatively evenly spread as listed in Table 1 below.
Condition Number Percentage
1. (positive cueing + no carbon offset) 63 25.4% 2. (positive cueing + yes carbon offset) 63 25.4% 3. (negative cueing + no carbon offset) 65 26.2% 4. (negative cueing + yes carbon offset) 57 23.0% Table 1: Conditions
Of the total sample, 163 (65.7%) participants were female and 85 (34.3%) were male participants. The ages varied between 16 and 89 years (M = 33.50, SD = 15.77).
As illustrated in Figure 2 above, 89.9% of the whole sample preferred the train option, whereas only 10.1% preferred the airplane option. Per condition the percentages are listed in Table 2 below.
Condition Train Airplane
1. (positive cueing + no carbon offset) 90.5% 9.5% 2. (positive cueing + yes carbon offset) 90.5% 9.5% 3. (negative cueing + no carbon offset) 92.3% 7.7% 4. (negative cueing + yes carbon offset) 86.0% 14.0% Table 2: Travel Mode Choice
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Train Airplane
Travel Mode Choice
25 5.2 Effect of carbon offsetting on travel mode choice
A PROCESS SPSS Macro (Model 7) was employed to test the moderated mediation model to analyse the results for hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 of the Conceptual Model (see Figure 1). In this analysis, travel mode choice served as the dependent variable, anticipated flight shame as the mediator, positive cueing as the moderator and the option of carbon offsetting as the independent variable. The findings of this moderated mediation model were summarised in Table 4 below, where statistical significance with alpha at .05 is indicated, when the confidence intervals do not include zero. The results of the process analysis indicated, that there was no significant difference between the carbon offsetting conditions on travel mode choice (b = .393, 95% CI -.449, 1.235).
In order to test the direct effect of carbon offsetting (1 = carbon offsetting, 0 = no carbon offsetting) on travel mode choice (1 = airplane, 0 = train) an additional Cross table with Chi-square with carbon offsetting and travel choice was conducted. This Chi-Chi-square test was not significant (Chi-square (1) = .645, p = .422). People in the carbon offsetting condition did not significantly more often preferred the train (11.7%) compared to people in the non-carbon offsetting condition (8.6%). Therefore, the first hypothesis, which expected that participants who were given the option to carbon offset their flight would show a stronger preference to fly, was rejected.
5.3 Moderating effect of positive cueing on travel mode choice
To assess the possible moderating effect of positive cueing on travel mode choice through the mediator of anticipated flight shame, firstly the effect of carbon offsetting on cueing was evaluated. The results of the moderated mediation model in Table 4 below indicated that no significant relation between carbon offsetting and cueing was found, because the 95% Confidence Interval includes zero (b = -.526, 95% CI -1.357, .305). An effect of cueing on anticipated flight shame was also not significant (b = .340, 95% CI -.238, .918).
26 The results of the logistic regression analyses are summarised in Table 3 below. This table shows the significance for each of the coefficients and the Wald statistic. In conclusion, none of the conditions significantly impacted travel mode choice, and therefore there is no statistical support for Hypothesis 2, which expected that positive cueing would decrease the effect of carbon offsetting.
Condition Coeff. (b) Wald df Sig.
1. (positive cueing + no carbon offset) -.439 .584 1 .445 2. (positive cueing + yes carbon offset) -.439 .584 1 .445 3. (negative cueing + no carbon offset) -.673 1.249 1 .264
4. (negative cueing + yes carbon offset) 1.408 3 .704
Table 3: Logistic Regression
5.4 Mediating effect of anticipated flight shame on travel mode choice
To verify that the three items measuring anticipated flight shame were reliable, Cronbach’s Alpha revealed that the three items could be taken together (α = .885; M = 9.392; SD = 4.380). However, it showed that Cronbach's alpha would be considerably higher if the third question would be deleted. For a statistically stronger scale of flight shame, this item was deleted, and the scores obtained on the other two items were combined.
Subsequently, in order to test whether anticipated flight shame mediated the relation between carbon offsetting and travel mode choice, the relation of carbon offsetting on anticipated flight shame was investigated by the moderated mediated mediation analysis in Table 4 below. This effect was not significant (b = .415, 95% CI -.178, 1.008).
27
Results Table of the moderated mediation model
Mediator: anticipated flight shame and moderator: positive cueing
Relative direct effects of X on Y
Carbon Offsetting Coeff. (b) .393 SE .431 LL 95% CI -.449 UL 95% CI 1.235
Outcome variable: Flight Shame Coeff. (b) SE LL 95% CI UL 95% CI
Carbon Offsetting .415 .301 -.178 1.008
Cueing .340 .293 -.238 .918
Carbon Offsetting x Cueing -.526 .422 -1.357 .305
Outcome variable: Travel Choice
Carbon Offsetting Flight Shame* Coeff. (b) .393 -.291 SE .430 .140 LL 95% CI -.449 -.566 UL 95% CI 1.235 -.016
Relative conditional indirect effects of X on Y
Coeff. (b) SE LL 95% CI UL 95% CI
Positive Cueing .032 .100 -.184 .244
Negative Cueing -.121 .123 -.408 .060
Note. * = p < 0.05
Table 4: PROCESS Analysis
5.5 Manipulation checks
In order to test if the three questions measuring the environmental self-identity were reliable, a Cronbach’s Alpha was executed. This showed that the self-identity items can be taken together, because Cronbach’s Alpha is >0.7 (α = .881; M = 4.964; SD =3.509).
Next, an Analysis of Variance was conducted to see whether the manipulation of positive cueing influenced the environmental self-identity. This ANOVA demonstrated that the pro-environmental self-identity was significantly higher for the respondents who were positively cued (F (1,248) = 9.734; p = .002).
An additional post-hoc analysis shows that people in the positive cueing condition have a higher score on self-identity (M = 5.188; SD = 1.100) than the people in the negative cueing condition (M = 4.732; SD = 1.199).
28 5.6 Additional analyses with pro-environmental self-identity
The effects of positive cueing were further analysed for a clearer picture about the moderator. The results of the pro-environmental self-identity could be insightful to make predictions on flight shame for a deeper understanding of the relations in the Conceptual Model.
In order to see whether anticipated flight shame was impacted by the manipulated moderating effect of perceived pro-environmental self-identity, an ANOVA revealed that the environmental self-identity significantly impacted feelings of anticipated flight shame (F (17, 230) = 6.829; p = .000).
Furthermore, another moderated mediation process analysis (Model 7) was conducted, to see whether pro-environmental self-identity would behave as moderator, instead of positive cueing. These results were not very different compared to the previous moderated mediation model with positive cueing. This additional process analysis indicated that the pro-environmental self-identity was found to positively influence anticipated flight shame (b = .698, 95% CI .478, .918), which is in line with the previous ANOVA.
Lastly, in order to control for gender differences in travel mode choice preference, a Cross table with Chi-square with gender and travel mode choice was done (1 = airplane, 0 = train). This Chi-square proved to be significant (Chi-square (1) = .645, p = .049).
Men significantly opted more often for the airplane (15.3%) than women (7.4%).
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Men Women
Gender Choice Preference
29
6. DISCUSSION
The most meaningful result of the experiment is that anticipated flight shame indeed significantly influenced travel mode choice, in the sense that more flight shame resulted in a higher preference for the environmentally friendly travel mode choice. This significant effect is partly in line with the expectations formed for Hypothesis 3. Based on research of Amatulli et al. (2019) it was expected that people would cope with anticipated flight shame by either avoiding or restoring shameful behaviour, and this was also found in the results of this paper. However, the expected mediating effect of anticipated flight shame on the relation between carbon offsetting and travel mode choice was not found to be significant, which means that Hypothesis 3 was rejected.
Furthermore, the pro-environmental self-identity was found to induce feelings of anticipated flight shame as well. This indicates that the pro-environmental self-identity is an influential factor in flying behaviour. Nevertheless, the moderating impact of positive cueing in combination with carbon offsetting on travel mode choice, as expected in Hypothesis 2, remained insignificant. Causes for this could be that firstly, the questions measuring pro-environmental self-identity after the participants were positively or negatively cued were asked before the question about travel mode choice. Van der Werff et al. (2014) stated that prior research suggested that measuring pro-environmental self-identity can possibly alter the effects of the positive cueing manipulation on following choice preferences. Secondly, the interaction effects of carbon offsetting, moral licensing and positive spillover could have balanced each other out, resulting in insignificant outcomes on travel mode choice.
In fact, none of the results with carbon offsetting were found to lead to significant outcomes, which implies that also Hypothesis 1 was rejected. Possibly, the option of carbon offsetting in the hypothetical situation of the study was not sufficiently influential to alter participants’ feelings of anticipated flight shame, nor to significantly impact their choice preference. Moreover, the whole sample showed a strong overall preference for the environmentally friendly travel mode option as 89.9% of the whole sample preferred the High Speed Train, versus only a 10.1% preference for the airplane.
30 In the sample of this research, only 34.3% were men, so it could be that a sample including more male participants would change the choice outcomes. Additionally, it could be that the two travel mode choices for the exact same price presented in the study might have made it relatively easy to opt for the environmentally friendly one.
31
7. CONCLUSION
While awareness about the negative consequences of unlimited air travel on global warming is growing, a notable reduction in air travel behaviour is still lacking, apart from the current decline directly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The flight shaming movement that emerged in Sweden in 2018 was assigned serious potential in reversing air travel growth. However, due to its recent rise, its effect had not been extensively explored yet. This paper aimed at contributing to the flight shaming movement by searching for solutions from a consumer behaviour perspective. The role of flight shame in consumer travel mode choice preferences was analysed by looking at its effects in combination with carbon offsetting and positive cueing.
Results of the experimental study with 248 participants, randomly assigned to four conditions, indeed indicated that anticipated flight shame affected travel mode choice. This answers the first research question which was: How does flight shame affect travel mode choice preferences? The fact that higher levels of flight shame increased the preference for environmentally friendly travel options offers a new insight in the flight shaming movement. Nevertheless, Hypothesis 3 was not supported because carbon offsetting did not influence anticipated flight shame significantly. Therefore, also the second research question is answered which was: How can carbon offsetting affect the travel mode choice through flight shame?
Now the last research question remains: Can positive cueing encourage an environmentally friendly travel mode choice and decrease the effect of carbon offsetting? Firstly, the effects of positive cueing on perceived pro-environmental self-identity were demonstrated to be significant, which was expected for the moderating effect of positive cueing in Hypothesis 2. The fact that positive cueing strengthened people’s pro-environmental self-identity provides additional evidence for the findings of Van der Werff et al. (2014), demonstrating that positive cueing can indeed be an effective tool to strengthen pro-environmental self-identity. However, the effects of carbon offsetting on travel mode choice did not affect any factor in the model. Therefore, none of the formulated hypotheses were supported.
32 Moreover, gender might have played a role in the strong overall preferences for the environmentally friendly travel mode choice, as it was demonstrated that men had a higher preference for the airplane option compared to women and formed the minority in the sample. Furthermore, it is possible that moral licensing and positive spillover effects could have balanced each other out, resulting in insignificant outcomes on travel mode choice.
33
8. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
This paper offers several implications to managers who want to stimulate environmentally friendly choice behaviour through decreasing air travel. The first suggestion is that anticipated flight shame is a useful predictor of a preference for an environmentally friendly travel choice. It is relevant to know that flight shaming can indeed stimulate pro-environmental travel preferences. Marketing communication strategies could be implemented to provoke emotions of anticipated flight shame. Raising awareness about the negative impact of flying could be one way to support the flight shaming movement and encourage people to take the train more often as a more environmentally friendly substitute of flying.
Furthermore, this research suggested that anticipated flight shame can be increased by a stronger pro-environmental self-identity. Organizations can apply tactics to strengthen people’s pro-environmental self-identity, and positive cueing could be one way to achieve this as demonstrated by this paper. Merely reminding people that they normally behave environmentally friendly can help people to perceive themselves as more environmentally friendly. These positive spillover effects can also be applied to stimulate further environmentally friendly choices.
Besides, due to the fact that moral licensing did not occur after offering people the option of carbon offsetting, environmentally concerned managers can safely offer carbon offsetting options without experiencing harmful consequences in environmental terms. In this research, carbon offsetting did not elicit environmentally unfriendly travel preferences. Therefore, in case flying is unavoidable for certain situations, there is no risk in offering or even encouraging carbon offsetting.
34
9. LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A noteworthy consideration about this experiment concerns the placement of the manipulation check measuring pro-environmental self-identity before the final travel mode choice. Van der Werff et al. (2014) indicated in her paper a possibility that the questions about the pro-environmental self-identity could influence subsequent choice preference. For future research it could prove beneficial to place the questions of pro-environmental self-identity after the final choice to prevent the manipulation check from affecting choice.
In addition to this, it is relevant to mention that the current research did not include a control group. As a matter of fact, the whole sample was cued either positively or negatively, and it could be the case that this cueing effect already made people extra conscious about environmental considerations. Higher preferences for the environmentally friendly travel mode choice could have been the result of this, which in turn could have impeded the outcomes of actual choice preference. Therefore, it can be recommended to include a control group in future research.
Another limitation of this paper is that travel mode choice was solely based on a one way trip from Brussels to London. A suitable question would be whether such a strong choice preference for the High Speed train would still hold for other itineraries. Besides, in order to say something generalizable about travel mode choice preference, different factors could lead to different outcomes. It would be interesting to see to what extent a higher price for the environmentally friendly travel option results in a higher percentage of people preferring the airplane. Therefore, future research could investigate possible factors influencing choice preference such as travel time, ticket price or departure times. Future research could also consider the option to study the relation of carbon offsetting separately from positive cueing to better draw conclusions on its effect on anticipated flight shame or travel mode choice behaviour.
35 Hence, regarding further research about environmental behaviour, a more even distribution of gender would result in a higher reliability of the outcomes.
36
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