M.A. Erasmus Mundus
Journalism, Media and Globalisation
(joint degree)
Worth More Than a Plastic Bag -
Motivating Germans to Sustainable Fashion Consumption
by
Nicole Goszczynski
Student ID: 11896779
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Master’s programme Communication Science
Supervisor/Examiner: dhr. dr. A.R.T. Schuck
Date of completion: 1
stJune 2018
Abstract
While the impact of values on pro-environmental behavior has gained considerable attention, the influence of messages framed in a way as to appeal to different values remains under-examined. By means of an experimental survey (n = 206), this study tests the effects of value framing on people with varying levels of environmental concern, regarding their
attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption, and concurrent behavioral intention. The findings indicate that value frames trigger negative emotions in people who are highly environmentally concerned, which, in turn, has an impact on their attitude, and ultimately intention to consume fashion more sustainably.
Considering the negative consequences of fast fashion production and consumption for the environment, people in production countries, and consumers, the current findings are relevant to develop communication strategies to raise awareness and trigger behavioral change.
Key words: framing effects, values, perceived value congruency, discrete emotions, environmental concern
Introduction
From 2000 to 2014, clothing production doubled, with more than 11 billion new pieces in 2014 (Greenpeace, 2017). Pioneers Inditex and H&M had recognized the potential of real-time data to identify consumption patterns and trends, leading them to favor low cost, and quick flexi-ble supply chains. Complemented by consumers’ changing lifestyles and demands for more di-versity in apparel (Bhardwaj & Fairhurst, 2010), the concept of ‘fast fashion’ was born. The sur-rounding discourse originally focused around the ‘democratizing’ (Rosa, 2014) potential, with fashion being made available to people at an affordable price, as opposed to the elite-targeting high fashion designers.
The wide product range, low quality, cheap prices, and stimulating marketing efforts have, however, intensified consumerist lifestyles. The subsequent overconsumption and ‘throw away mentality’ (Bhardwaj & Fairhurst, 2010) have, as Greenpeace (2017) puts, led to today’s trends becoming tomorrow’s trash. This has had negative consequences for the environment. Not only is the large amount of clothing that goes to landfill not biodegradable, but the (often car-cinogenic) chemicals and synthetic fibers used for dye, bleaching, or printing, pollute groundwa-ter and rivers (Wicker, 2016). This especially affects living conditions of the populations in pro-duction countries, such as China, India, or Bangladesh. Finally, the fast fashion industry keeps exploiting and abusing garment workers to meet the high demand, even after the collapse of Rana Plaza, a Bangladeshi clothing factory, in 2013 (Kasperkevic, 2016). Therefore, non-profit organizations concerned with human rights and environmental issues have been campaigning against fast fashion consumption and wasteful behavior. To successfully advance sustainability, a concept that ideally reconciles concerns about people, planet, and profit, it is relevant to test the effectiveness of such efforts.
Research on related communication has looked at advertisements, news items, and par-tially campaigns, and shown that there is a positive relationship between environmental concern and receptiveness towards green marketing and pro-environmental campaigning (e.g. Grimmer & Woolley, 2014; Hart, Nisbet, & Shanahan, 2011; Matthes, Wonneberger, & Schmuck, 2013; Wonneberger, 2017). Having in mind that non-profits base their work on certain values, research following a value paradigm was further consulted. The reviewed studies have found values to in-fluence an individual’s pro-environmental attitude and behavior to a certain extent (Davari, Iyer, & Strutton, 2017; de Groot & Steg, 2007b; Schultz et al., 2005). Those are, however, mostly based on surveys. Considering that communicative appeals to values are likely to motivate long-term behavior (Klöckner, 2013), it is relevant to test their direct impact on sustainable fashion consumption. One way to appeal to different values is ‘framing,’ emphasizing related aspects of an issue, while often neglecting others, to promote a specific perspective. Studies have shown frames to influence not only how people understand and evaluate an issue, but also how they act about it (e.g. Lecheler, Schuck, & de Vreese, 2013; Nisbet, Hart, Myers, & Ellithorpe, 2013). However, most such research focuses on political engagement, rather than consumption attitude and behavior. To my knowledge, only one study (Hansla, 2011) has examined the impact of value framing in particular on pro-environmental attitude and behavior, though without further analyzing how the effects work and for whom. These considerations lead to the overarching re-search question of the current study: How are sustainable fashion consumption attitude and
be-havior of consumers with different levels of environmental concern affected by distinct value frames?
The question will be answered by means of an experiment, testing framing effects on atti-tude towards sustainable fashion consumption and concurrent behavior. Participants were re-cruited in Germany, its population showing interesting characteristics within this context. The Eurobarometer (European Commission, 2017) found that Germans tend to be highly concerned about the environment. More than 80% reported that they were worried about the impact of eve-ryday products made of plastic or chemicals on the environment. However, the majority did not take notice of or consciously consider ecolabels in their purchase decisions (European Commis-sion, 2017), sustainable fashion being particularly unpopular (Perschau, 2017). German consum-ers buy 60 clothing pieces on average annually, out of the perception of not having enough, while throwing away 1.3 million tons per year (Greenpeace, 2017).
First, the main concepts for this study will be described based on previous literature. This is followed by a description of the method, and statistical results. Finally, the latter are discussed in light of the applied theory.
The Potential of Value Frames to Impact Sustainable Fashion Consumption Value Framing
Values are “trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding princi-ples in the life of a person or group” (Schwartz et al., 2012, p. 664), meaning that behavior in specific situations is motivated by different concerns and considerations, depending on their rela-tive importance to an individual (Fransson & Gärling, 1999). The pursued behavior thus illus-trates what a person values most in life (de Groot & Steg, 2008b).
Following Zhang and Min (2013), ‘value framing’ is then defined as “the process by which a media frame connects an issue to particular values and thus strengthens this link in the
mind of the audience” (p.253). Previous research on value framing has been carried out predomi-nantly within the field of political communication (e.g. Nelson, Lecheler, Schuck, & de Vreese, 2015; Zhang & Min, 2013), focusing on how values, such as free speech, are connected to spe-cific issues, and how this impacts people’s political opinion and engagement. These studies have found significant effects of distinct value frames. Yet, the focus on the political sphere neglects the influence of an individual’s values on other types of behavior.
There are three universally applicable value orientations that have been shown to affect pro-environmental attitude and behavior, namely egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric (de Groot & Steg, 2007b; Schultz, 2001; Schultz et al., 2005; Sharma & Jha, 2017). While biospheric values assess implications of behavior with regards to the biosphere and non-human living beings (Stern & Dietz, 1994), altruistic ones turn the focus towards humanity, future generations, or a specific community (Schultz et al., 2005). In contrast, egoistic values lead an individual to consider con-sequences and benefits for oneself (de Groot & Steg, 2008b).
While related research predominantly follows a psychological approach, examining the link by means of surveys (e.g. Chen, 2015a; Schultz et al., 2005; Sharma & Jha, 2017), the cur-rent experiment tests how framing a specific pro-environmental behavior, sustainable fashion consumption, in consonance with egoistic, altruistic, or biospheric values influences an individ-ual’s attitude towards and application of it. For this purpose, ‘sustainable fashion consumption’ is defined as, on the one hand, the conscious purchase of clothing that has been produced fairly and/ or out of natural materials, or timeless pieces that last long due to high quality (Lundblad & Davies, 2016), or secondhand/ vintage clothing. On the other hand, the general reduction in
buy-ing new fashion, while reusbuy-ing already purchased items, is also considered sustainable consump-tion. Appropriate behavior, in this sense, is repairing clothes, wearing them for longer, reselling, or swapping them with others (Greenpeace, 2017).
As indicated above, a similar experiment has been conducted by Hansla (2011) in relation to energy consumption, operationalizing the frames in terms of negative consequences of non-green electricity consumption for the distinct valued objects, namely self, others, and the envi-ronment. Comparable studies, though not explicitly framing research, have tested the effects of advertisements that stress either personal, altruistic, or environmental benefits of green products and behavior (e.g. Bolderdijk, Steg, Geller, Lehman, & Postmes, 2013; Grimmer & Woolley, 2014; Kareklas, Carlos, & Muehling, 2014). The results are contradictory, with no difference in effects, on the one hand (Grimmer & Wolley, 2014), and biospheric and altruistic framing being more effective in triggering a pro-environmental behavior than egoistic framing, on the other (Bolderdijk et al., 2013; Hansla, 2011; Hunter & Röös, 2016; Kareklas et al., 2014). These find-ings are useful to formulate the guiding hypothesis:
H1: Value framing, as compared to purely factual communication, has a positive impact on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption (SFCA).
Self-transcendent values and pro-environmental behavior
A self-transcendent value orientation prompts the evaluation of an outcome beyond one’s personal interests for the good of others (Schwartz et al., 2012), encompassing both altruistic and biospheric values. Accompanying goals are normative and make people “especially sensitive to what they think they ought to do” (Steg, Bolderdijk, Keizer, & Perlaviciute, 2014, p.104), hence what is socially and morally appropriate in a certain situation (Davari, Iyer, & Strutton, 2017). Reviewed studies have shown positive influence of a self-transcendent value orientation on
pro-environmental behavior. However, biospheric values were shown to be stronger predictors than altruistic ones (Davari, Iyer, & Strutton, 2017; de Groot & Steg, 2010; de Groot & Steg, 2008b; de Groot & Steg, 2007b; Schultz et al., 2005; Schultz, 2001).
Due to the normative aspect, a frame stressing negative consequences of unsustainable behavior for other humans or the environment is likely to evoke feelings of guilt, or even shame, in people whose actions contribute to such. Both emotions have been shown to have a signifi-cantly positive effect on attitude (Graton, Ric, & Gonzalez, 2016; Rees, Klug, & Bamberg, 2015; Wonneberger, 2017) and pro-environmental behavioral intention (Chang, 2011; Graton et al., 2016; Wonneberger, 2017). Based on their findings after confronting respondents with human-caused environmental damage, Rees et al. (2015) propose that guilt and shame might even be-long to the same concept of group-based ‘guilty conscience.’ The latter reflects the feeling that one, as part of a certain group, is at least partly responsible for the harm inflicted on others and/ or the environment, and has been shown to have the strongest influence on both behavioral inten-tion and actual behavior. Chang (2011), however, emphasizes that guilt appeals might backfire when applied to the marketing of a hedonic product. She suggests to only use it for triggering purchase intention of either practical or mixed products. Fashion can be categorized as mixed, considering that everybody needs a basic set of clothes, but that some people also consume it for pleasure.
Self-enhancement values and pro-environmental behavior
The egoistic value orientation is also commonly referred to as self-enhancement, focusing on so-called ‘gain goals,’ which “prompt people to be sensitive to changes in their personal re-sources, such as money and status” (Steg et al., 2014, p.104). Such rational decision-making is likely to lead people to neglect aspects of sustainability and fair trade, due to relatively high costs
in terms of price, effort, and time. Consequently, an egoistic value orientation has been found to be negatively related to pro-environmental behavior (Bolderdijk et al., 2013; de Groot & Steg, 2007b; Schultz et al., 2005; Stern & Dietz, 1994). While researchers expected that pro-environ-mental behavior could be stimulated by stressing either negative consequences of unsustainable consumption for oneself, or personal benefits of pro-environmental behavior, respective studies have found minimal effects at best. One example (Kareklas et al., 2014) is related to consuming organic food, the latter being highly associated with perceived benefits for one’s health. This is relatable to Lundblad and Davies’ (2016) findings that actual consumers of sustainable fashion are most strongly motivated by egoistic considerations, such as health and comfort. While this might be due to their prioritization of those aspects over perceived costs and efforts, stressing negative consequences of fast fashion on personal health, both physically due to toxic materials (Lundblad & Davies, 2016) and mentally in terms of marketing (Kolandai-Matchett, 2009), is likely to have a positive effect on attitude towards and intention of sustainable fashion consump-tion. Following the cognitive theory of stress, perceived threat has been shown to explain self-reported pro-environmental behavior through negative emotions such as irritation, or even fear, triggering the wish to solve the problem (Chen, 2015b; Homburg & Stolberg, 2006). Accord-ingly, the following is expected:
H2: Effects on attitude are mediated in such a way that exposure to value framing in-creases negative emotions (e.g. guilt, anger) which in turn lead to a more positive attitude to-wards sustainable fashion consumption. The biospheric frame has the strongest positive effect on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption, followed by the altruistic, and egoistic frame, in that order.
Perceived Value Congruency
While the concept of ‘perceived value congruency’ (PVC) has been exclusively used within research regarding involvement in organizations, its implications are useful for the current study. Here, it is defined as the “alignment between the individual’s values and their perception of the values” (Cazier, Shao, & St. Louis, 2007, p.515) inherent to a behavior as promoted by an article. Cazier, Shao and St. Louis (2017) found that, due to its emotional appeal, perceived value congruency has a positive effect on purchase intentions, even in cases of price premium. In addi-tion to the affecaddi-tionate aspect, people tend to evaluate new informaaddi-tion in relaaddi-tion to their values, which often leads to selective acceptance of messages that are perceived as congruent (Stern & Dietz, 1994). For instance, a study by Bolderdijk, Gorsira, Keizer, and Steg (2014) showed that while environmental campaigns increased knowledge about negative consequences of environ-mentally unfriendly behavior in people regardless of their value orientation, this knowledge only led to stronger pro-environmental intentions among people with a strong biospheric value orien-tation. Additionally, Steg et al. (2014) stress that “people are tempted to stress any advantage and to downplay any disadvantage of behavior options that have positive consequences for their im-portant values, while the opposite is true for options that have negative consequences for their important values” (p.108). Further research (e.g. Brunel & Nelson, 2000; Gatersleben, Murtagh, Cherry, & Watkins, 2017; Grimmer, & Woolley, 2014; Kareklas et al., 2014; Rees et al., 2015) also strongly supports the idea that perceived value congruency has a positive influence on atti-tude and enhances the effectiveness of behavior promotion. These thoughts lead to the third hy-pothesis.
H3: Value framing has an effect on perceived value congruency (PVC) which further in-fluences attitude. The higher PVC, the more positive should the attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption be.
Environmental Concern
There are various conceptualizations for ‘environmental concern’ (EC; Fransson & Gärling, 1999), as attitude, belief, or, as followed here, “pro-environmental orientation” (Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000, p.427). Environmental concern is then comparable to an eco-centric thinking that places the health of the environment and non-human living beings as most important principle determining behavior (Fransson & Gärling, 1999). The definition follows the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP; Dunlap et al., 2000) that covers three beliefs, namely about “humanity’s ability to upset the balance of nature, the existence of limits to growth for human societies, and humanity’s right to rule over the rest of nature” (p.427). Following the value-be-lief-norm (VBN; Stern, 2000), de Groot and Steg (2008b) found that the egoistic and biospheric value orientation significantly influenced an individual’s level of environmental concern. Adher-ence to egoistic values was negatively related to environmental concern, while the opposite was found for higher levels of biospheric values. Other studies have shown the altruistic value orien-tation to also positively influence environmental concern (Schultz, 2001; Stern, 2000; Stern & Dietz, 1994). The concept of environmental concern can hence be used as an indicator for an in-dividual’s value orientation that will moderate the effect of value framing (Wonneberger, 2017).
Environmental concern has been found to influence advertising effects for green products (Grimmer & Woolley, 2014; Rees et al., 2015; Wonneberger, 2017), and reactions to media re-ports on environmental topics (Zhao, 2009). Especially considering what has been said related to ‘perceived value congruency,’ and Grimmer and Woolley’s (2014) finding that “consumers with
a greater level of concern, emotionally, for the environment will be more swayed by a pure envi-ronmental advertisement” (p.245), while consumers with lower levels of envienvi-ronmental concern showed greater purchase intention after being exposed to the advertisement highlighting a per-sonal benefit to consuming the sustainable product, I deduce the following hypotheses on the moderating effect of environmental concern:
H4a: The effect of value framing on perceived value congruency (PVC) is moderated by the level of environmental concern (EC). The higher the level of EC, the higher PVC with bio-spheric or, to a lesser extent, altruistic value frames. In contrast, the lower the level of EC, the higher PVC with egoistic value frames.
H4b: Attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption will be more positive the higher PVC with biospheric or altruistic framing due to high environmental concern. The higher PVC with egoistic framing due to low environmental concern, the least positive the attitude.
Attitude towards Sustainable Fashion Consumption
Specific attitudes towards a behavior are defined as beliefs about and evaluations of con-sequences of performing the behavior (Fransson & Gärling, 1999). Studies following the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991; de Groot & Steg, 2007a; Sharma & Jha, 2017) have found specifically tailored, as opposed to general, attitudes to predict behavior. However, especially within the context of pro-environmental behavior, some researchers (Stern, 2000; Fransson & Gärling, 1999; Klöckner, 2013; Holt, 2012; Steg & Vlek, 2009) argue that contextual factors such as financial resources or perceived social norms, personal capabilities, and existing habits might minimize the direct influence of attitudes on behavior, leading to the so-called attitude-be-havior-gap. Klöckner (2013), nonetheless, stresses that while positive attitude might not always
lead to behavior, it has an impact and needs to be considered. Keeping in mind these opposing theorizations and findings, the following is assumed:
H5: Value framing influences intention of sustainable fashion consumption by affecting either perceived value congruency or emotions, which, in turn, has an effect on attitude, which, finally, impacts behavioral intention. The more favorable the attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption, the stronger should be the intention to perform sustainable fashion consumption behavior (see Figure 1, for the model including concepts and hypothesized relationships).
Figure 1. Value framing effects on attitude towards and intention of sustainable fashion consumption
Method Participants
A convenience sample of German nationals (N = 2061, 152 women, 54 men, Mage = 31 years, age range: 18 – 71 years) was recruited online, via private messages and public posts on Facebook, within a time frame of seven days (see Table 1, for demographics). While the general-izability of results obtained from such samples could be questioned, studies (e.g. Mullinix,
1 Eight participants did not confirm to have read the debriefing. They have, however, completed the whole survey,
Leeper, Druckman, & Freese, 2015) have shown that they can be similar to the ones obtained from population-based samples. According to the snowball method, participants were asked to further distribute the experiment among their acquaintances. Participation was voluntary. For the pilot study (see below), 20 additional participants (20 women, Mage = 25, age range: 24 – 28 years) were recruited among personal contacts.
Table 1. Demographics
Pilot Study
The pilot study was conducted to reduce the number of items of several scales, test relia-bilities of self-constructed scales, and check for successful manipulation of the stimulus material. Reliability and data reduction analyses led to minor changes in some scales, as elaborated below. As assessed by inspection of descriptives, manipulation was successful, each condition group scoring highest on the related statement. For instance, participants in the egoistic condition agreed most strongly with the statement that “The article focuses on the negative consequences
of fashion overconsumption on the consumers,” against the ones stating a focus on either people
Materials
Participants were exposed to textual stimuli which were constructed based on actual com-munication material by non-profit organizations, to increase authenticity and credibility, hence external validity. Campaigns by Fashion Revolution (FR) and Greenpeace Germany (GPG) were chosen due to their thematic focus on fashion production and consumption, and their respective value orientation2. A small-scale exploratory content analysisi of their blog articles was con-ducted to identify relevant information for the construction of the stimulus material.
As mentioned above, the value frames were then mainly operationalized in terms of negative
consequences of (fast) fashion (over-) consumption – thus, keeping valence constant across
ma-nipulations – for the distinct valued objects, either consumers as ‘self,’ people in production countries as ‘others,’ or the ‘environment’3. Such associations were reinforced by statements concluding who would benefit from consumers’ shift to sustainable behavior. Respective manip-ulations were made in the headline, lead, first part of the body, and the kicker (de Vreese, 2005). For instance, to manipulate the headline of the control condition (‘Fashion in Transition –
Sus-tainable Consumption’) according to the respective value frame, it was extended by either ‘(…) for Personal Well-Being’ (egoistic), ‘(…) for Fair Working Conditions’ (altruistic), or ‘(…) for the Environment’ (biospheric). Minor adjustments were made to the stimuli based on the pilot
study4. The stimuli had a word count of 400 words +/- 20 each. They were uniformly designed as
2 While FR approaches the subject of sustainable fashion consumption out of a human rights, or altruistic, perspective,
GPG reflects an environmental, or biospheric, viewpoint. A campaign focusing solely on egoistic considerations was not found, but both FR and GPG elaborated on such at times.
3 The stimuli are to be found in Appendix A.
4 The pilot study showed the egoistic frame to provoke more shame than the other frames. Since the frames were based
on negative consequences for valued objects, the egoistic condition was supposed to evoke stronger feelings of vic-timization within the consumer. In this context, feelings of shame are uncalled for. Phrasing was therefore changed to make it sound less like consumers were not smart enough to see through tactics of the fashion industry, and more like the latter was to blame. In turn, both the altruistic and biospheric articles were supposed to trigger stronger feelings of responsibility and guilt, wording was therefore minimally changed as well.
blog articles, including a recent date of publication to convey currency of the topic, an author with a gender-neutral name to prevent effects of gender-bias, and social media buttons. No name for the publishing organization was added to avoid bias effects due to personal opinion. Tags were placed at the bottom of each article, with all conditions containing ‘fast fashion,’
‘consump-tion,’ and ‘economy.’ For the manipulated stimuli, either ‘health,’ ‘human rights,’ or ‘environ-ment’ were added respectively.
Design and Procedure
The experiment used a between-subjects design, with value frame as independent cate-gorical variable. After giving their consent, participants provided general demographics includ-ing gender, age, education and income. This was followed by the scale measurinclud-ing the moderator
environmental concern, and two statements related to product type to distract from the moderator
before manipulation. Then, respondents were exposed to randomly assigned stimuli, successful across age, c2 (3) = 4.312, p > .05, gender, c2 (3) = 2.668, p > .05, education, c2 (3) = 3.742, p >
.05, and income, c2 (3) = 5.004 p > .05. First, the post-test measured perceived valence of the
article, followed by the manipulation check. Second, questions related to the mediators emotions and perceived value congruency were asked. The scales related to attitude and intention5 came next. Finally, participants were debriefed about the manipulations and the purpose of the study. The estimated response time according to Qualtrics was eight minutes.
Measures
Manipulation Check. On a five-point Likert scale from (1) strongly disagree to (5)
strongly agree, respondents indicated the extent to which they agreed with three statements, each
of which stressed the focus of one of the frames. The items read “The article focuses on the
neg-ative consequences of fashion overconsumption on the consumers,” “[…] on the environment,” “[…] on people in production countries.” This way, a comparison could be made whether the
respective frame produced significantly different findings for the related statement.
Environmental Concern. Following Whitmarsh (2009), a shorter version (a= 0.72) of the widely used (Fransson & Gärling, 1999) New Environmental Paradigm (NEP; Dunlap et al., 2000; Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978) scale is used to not discourage people from continuing the ex-periment. On a five-point Likert scale from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree, respond-ents indicate the degree to which they agree with six statemrespond-ents about the relationship between humans and the environment, for instance “Humans have the right to modify the natural
environ-ment to suit their needs6.”
Emotions. In the final questionnaire, participants indicated how strongly they felt
differ-ent negative emotions, for instance “guilty,” on a seven-point Likert scale from (1) not at all to
(7) very strongly. While the original scale entailed 22 emotions, both positive and negative
(partly taken from Lu, 2016; rest added based on theory), a principal components analysis fol-lowed by reliability testing based on the pilot data led to a final version of 11 negative emotions (a= .82).
Perceived Value Congruency. This scale consisted of three items adapted from Cazier,
Shao, and St. Louis (2007) and Hoffman, Bynum, Piccolo, and Sutton (2011). On a five-point Likert scale from (1) not at all to (5) very much, participants stated to what extent the statements were true to them, for example “The article focuses on aspects that are important to me
person-ally” (a= .7).
Attitude towards Sustainable Fashion Consumption. The measure for attitude was split
into six separate scales representing concrete examples of sustainable fashion consumption (Greenpeace, 2017; Lundblad & Davies, 2016). These asked participants to evaluate the idea to, for example, “buy less new clothes” on a five-point bipolar adjective scale (De Leeuw, Valois, Ajzen, & Schmidt, 2015), for instance “unnecessary – necessary.” The combined scale had high internal reliability (a= .81). The originally incorporated pairs “condemnable – commendable,” and “unmodern – modern” were excluded from the final scales due to reliability optimization based on the pilot data.
Sustainable Fashion Consumption. According to the theory of planned behavior,
inten-tion is “assumed to capture the motivainten-tional factors that influence a behavior; […]. As a general rule, the stronger the intention to engage in a behavior, the more likely should be the perfor-mance” (Ajzen, 1991, p.181). Therefore, on a six point Likert-scale (a= .82) from (1) extremely
unlikely to (6) extremely likely, respondents indicated the probability of them performing specific
behaviors of sustainable fashion consumption within the next 12 months (Fischer, Böhme, & Geiger, 2017). The items encompassed all examples from the attitude scale7, plus “buying only
what I need,” and “not throw my old clothes in the trash.”
Results Manipulation Check
A one-way ANOVA and subsequent post-hoc tests were run to confirm successful ma-nipulation: respondents exposed to egoistic value framing agreed more with the statement that the article emphasized negative consequences for consumers (egoistic: M= 3.5, SD= 1.3;
bio-
spheric: M= 2.7, SD= 1.3; control: M= 2.7, SD= 1.3; altruistic: M= 2.2, SD=1.3). Participants
ex-posed to the altruistic frame agreed more with the statement that the article focused on people in production countries (altruistic: M= 4.5, SD= .6; biospheric: M= 3.2, SD= 1.3; egoistic: M= 2.9,
SD= 1.3; control: M= 2.7, SD= 1.4). Finally, respondents who were confronted with biospheric
framing agreed more with the statement that the article stressed implications on the environment (biospheric: M= 4.3, SD= .7; control: M= 3.7, SD= 1.1; altruistic: M= 3.7, SD= 1.1; egoistic: M= 3.2, SD= 1.3). All manipulation check items showed significant differences (egoistic: F(3, 202) = 9.000, p < .001; altruistic: Welch’s F(3, 103.801) = 44.340, p < .001; biospheric: Welch’s F(3, 104.129) = 11.127, p <.001).ii
Main effects hypothesis
First, I predicted that value framing, as compared to factual communication, would have an impact on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption (SFCA; H1). A one-way
ANOVA was conducted to test this assumption. There was one outlier in the egoistic condition group, as assessed by boxplot; data was normally distributed for all but the egoistic condition group (Shapiro-Wilk test, p > .05). The ANOVA was continued regardless, because it is “fairly ‘robust’ to deviations from normality” (Lærd Statistics, 2018), and the results are unlikely to be substantially affected by one outlier. Homogeneity of variances was met, as assessed by
Levene’s test (p = .466). There were no significant differences between the groups, F(3, 202) = .715, p = .544. Additional post-hoc tests comparing each frame to either the control condition, or the other frames, showed that there were indeed no significant differences (control: M = 3.81;
Mediation via emotions hypothesis
Further, I assumed that effects on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption were mediated in such a way that exposure to value framing, which stressed negative consequences of (fast) fashion (over-) consumption, increased negative emotions which, in turn, led to a more positive attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption. The biospheric frame was anticipated to have the strongest positive impact on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption, fol-lowed by the altruistic and egoistic frame, in that order (H2).
While the ANOVA did not show any significant main effects, ‘parallel mediation’ analy-sis, including both emotions and perceived value congruency (PVC; Pearson’s r = .361), using the PROCESS macro by Hayes (2013) was conducted to uncover potential indirect effects (Model 4). The tests, with estimates based on 5,000 bootstrap samples, produced diverse results. Comparing the groups exposed to (1) framing separately with the (0) control group, initially only the altruistic frame showed a significant positive indirect effect on attitude via increasing nega-tive emotions (b = .0678, SE = .0462, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0058; .2037). The emotions variable (mediator) was then split up into five pairs of highly correlated and more coherent sub-emotions (see Table 2, for correlations), with ‘hopeful’ being excluded due to low significant correlations with any of the other emotions. The results indicated that reading the altruistic frame, against factual communication, was likely to make readers feel more ‘indignant – annoyed,’ which, in turn, increased their positive attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption (b = .0828, SE = .0536, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0093; .2320). While the biospheric frame significantly increased negative emotions (b = .5353, SE = .2437, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0517; 1.0189) and the latter sig-nificantly enhanced positive attitude (b = .1029, SE = .0451, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0134; .1925), mediation fell just short of reaching a significant effect (b = .0551, SE = .0429, p > .05, 95% bca
CI: -.0005; .1813). However, testing the pairs of sub-emotions in the ‘parallel mediation’ model showed that people who were exposed to biospheric framing, felt more ‘compassionate – af-fected’ and ‘indignant-annoyed’, which further increased their positive attitude towards sustaina-ble fashion consumption (ind. effect via ‘compassionate – affected’: b = .0720, SE = .0531, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0034; .2295; ind. effect via ‘indignant – annoyed’: b = .0863, SE = .0526, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0113; .2219). Contrasting the mediating effects of ‘compassionate- affected’ and ‘indignant – annoyed’ showed no significant difference in strength (b = -.0143, SE = .0714,
p > .05, 95% bca CI: -.1428; .1461). Based on these comparisons, H1a can be partially accepted,
with the biospheric frame having the strongest indirect effect via emotions, followed by the altru-istic frame, both as predicted. Considering that the egoaltru-istic frame did not produce any significant effects, the last part of the hypothesis is not supportediii.
Table 2. Correlations of discrete emotions
Mediation via perceived value congruency hypothesis
Next, I predicted that value framing had an effect on perceived value congruency (PVC) which, in turn, would influence attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption. I expected that
the higher the PVC, the more positive would be the attitude (H3). The results were taken from the same ‘parallel mediation’ analysis that was run to test the role of emotions (see above, Model 4). For all comparisons, higher PVC significantly increased positive attitude. However, in none of the tests did it significantly mediate between value framing and attitude. H2 can only be par-tially confirmed.
Moderation hypothesis
I also predicted that the effect of value framing on PVC would be moderated by the level of environmental concern (EC). I expected higher PVC with biospheric or, to a lesser extent, al-truistic value frames, for people with higher levels of EC. In contrast, the lower the level of EC, the higher I expected PVC with the egoistic value frame (H4a). Moderation analysis was con-ducted using Model 1 in PROCESS, with estimates based on 5,000 bootstrap samples. No signif-icant moderation of the effect of value framing on perceived value congruency was found in any of the comparisons. H2a is therefore rejected.
Moderated mediation hypothesis
Further, I assumed that the effect of value framing on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption through perceived value congruency would be moderated by the level of environ-mental concern (H4b). This was tested by Model 7 in PROCESS, with estimates based on 5,000 bootstrap samples. Even though my hypothesis focused on the moderating impact of environ-mental concern on the relation between value framing and PVC, emotions were included as par-allel mediator to test the whole model. Among all comparisons, no significant moderated media-tion via PVC was found. There is no support for H2b. However, the level of environmental con-cern appeared to moderate the effect of value framing on attitude via emotions in three casesiv.
Serial mediation hypothesis
Finally, I assumed a serial mediation from value framing on behavioral intention via ei-ther perceived value congruency or emotions, and attitude. The more favorable the attitude to-wards sustainable fashion consumption, the stronger I expected the intention to consume fashion sustainably to be (H5).
To test this hypothesis, Model 6 in PROCESS was runv, with estimates based on 5,000 bootstrap samples. Serial mediation through perceived value congruency over attitude was sig-nificantly positive for the (1) biospheric frame (b = .1043, SE = .0604, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0051; .2459), compared to the (0) egoistic condition. Further, the indirect effect of the bio-spheric frame on intention also turned out to be significantly positive via only PVC (b = .0972,
SE = .0594, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0074; .2499). In contrast, mediation from the biospheric
condi-tion on intencondi-tion via attitude was found to be significantly negative (b = -.2188, SE = .0934, p < .05, 95% bca CI: -.4102; -.0446), adding to the previously reported results about the negative di-rect effect of biospheric framing on attitude.
Serial mediation from value framing on intention through increased negative emotions over enhanced positive attitude was found significantly positive in four cases: First, the (1) altru-istic frame as compared to the (0) control condition (b = .0938, SE = .0640, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0103; .2772); second, the (1) biospheric frame against the (0) control condition (b = .0921, SE = .0633, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0124; .2735); third, the (1) altruistic as compared to the (0) egoistic frame (b = .1358, SE = .0583, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0471; .2862); finally, the (1) biospheric against the (0) egoistic frame (b = .1290, SE = .0610, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0401; .2867). H3 can be accepted by a serial mediation analysis, establishing that exposure to biospheric or altruistic framing increases negative emotions, such as compassion and angervi, which subsequently lead
to a more positive attitude which, finally, enhances intention to consume fashion more sustaina-bly.
Discussion
This study was carried out to determine how to successfully promote a positive attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption, and ultimately motivate concurrent behavior. Three articles framed in a way as to appeal to either an egoistic, altruistic, or biospheric value orienta-tion, were tested against a purely factual text, by means of an online experiment conducted in Germany. The results were analyzed as to evaluate the effectiveness of each frame, to uncover to what extent effects are transmitted by perceived value congruency or (discrete) negative emo-tions, and whether environmental concern moderates the process.
The guiding research question was how sustainable fashion consumption attitude and be-havior of consumers with different levels of environmental concern was affected by distinct value frames. Overall, the current findings suggest that value framing might have no direct effect on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption, nor concurrent behavior, but that there is indeed an indirect influence via negative emotions. If appealing to the right discrete emotions, both altruistic and biospheric framing were found to be a more effective approach than providing pure facts and information, with small but nonetheless significant effects. More precisely, these effects were significant in increasing positive attitude in people who were highly environmen-tally concerned, due to them being more emotionally aroused by the content than persons with low environmental concern. The frames are hence less effective for people who are not inter-ested, or not yet sensitized for environmental issues, which corresponds to previous studies (e.g. Wonneberger, 2017). Further proving the assumption of the theory of planned behavior, and questioning the infamous attitude-behavior gap in environmental behavior research (e.g. de
Groot & Steg, 2007a; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002), attitude towards sustainable fashion con-sumption was a significant predictor of concurrent behavioral intention.
The power of discrete emotions
Splitting the all-encompassing negative emotions variable into pairs demonstrated that the frames did not influence attitude nor intention via guilt and/ or shame, as was originally as-sumed. Even though both altruistic and biospheric framing increased feelings of guilt and/ or shame, their effects on attitude, and subsequently behavioral intention, mainly worked through anger, measured as indignation and/ or annoyance. This might be due to frame construction, both the lead and the footer implying that the fashion industry was the direct causer of harm, while the consumers’ behavior could have been perceived of as having a rather indirect influence. While the initial reasoning behind this combination was to prevent a ‘boomerang effect’ (Schultz, No-lan, Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2007) by not focusing the blame on consumers alone, it might have triggered both ‘primacy’ and ‘recency’ effects (Chong & Druckman, 2010; Lecheler & de Vreese, 2013), leading readers to predominantly remember the industry as the main pollut-ers (biospheric) or abuspollut-ers (altruistic). This further feeds into the widely spread opinion among Germans that “big polluters should be mainly responsible for making good the environmental they cause” (European Commission, 2017, p.15). It then makes sense that no ‘guilty conscience’ (Rees et al., 2015) was triggered, but that anger, by motivating people to pay attention to given information to find out what they can do to minimize a perceived threat (Lecheler, Schuck, & de Vreese, 2013), influenced opinion-formation and mobilization. This is especially supported by the results showing that being angrier about the negative consequences of unsustainable fashion consumption on the environment (biospheric framing), directly predicted higher intention to change their behavior (see endnote).
However, compared to the egoistic article, the biospheric frame also provoked fear, measured as fright and/ or surprise, which then backfired by lowering attitude towards sustaina-ble fashion consumption. Individuals who experience higher levels of fear due to a threatening message are less motivated to process information, let alone take suggested action (Lecheler et al., 2013; Putwain, Symes, & Wilkinson, 2017). In an attempt to avoid the problem, the reaction might even be defensive (Chen, 2016). This was found to be especially true for people to whom the threat is self-relevant (Kessels, Ruiter, Wouters, & Jansma, 2014), which would explain why the frame was significantly frightening to respondents with high environmental concern, the lat-ter intensifying their evaluation of the severity of the issue (Wonneberger, 2017).
An explanation could be that high levels of fear increase the perception of not being able to cope with the problem (Ruiter, Verplanken, Kok, & Werrij, 2003), especially within the con-text of global issues, such as environmental pollution, that can only be solved by joint efforts. Perceived collective efficacy is therefore likely to influence such framing effects (Chen, 2015b). Being part of a group enhances the perception of being able to change something together
(Cojuharenco, Cornelissen, & Karelaia, 2016), which, in turn, leads to a more positive evaluation of pro-environmental behavior, and to actual engagement (Jugert et al., 2016). Taking into ac-count that all tested frames stated that Germans overconsume and throw away 1.3 million tons of clothing yearly, this might have lowered perceived collective efficacy, hence led to a state of ap-athy (Chen, 2016).
Considering that anger and fear are of similarly negative valence, their opposing effects underline the need to distinguish between discrete emotions, rather than examining them as one broad concept (Lecheler et al., 2013). This study hence adds important nuance to the understand-ing of how these particular emotions mediate framunderstand-ing effects on opinion-formation and behavior,
thereby contributing to an emerging body of literature on the exact role of discrete emotions (e.g. Stolwijk, Schuck, & de Vreese, 2017; Vasilopoulou & Wagner, 2017).
The link between values and pro-environmental attitude and behavior
Previous empirical research on the link between value orientations and pro-environmental behavior was predominantly conducted in form of surveys, and has found low but significant im-pact (e.g., Chen, 2015a; de Groot & Steg, 2007a; de Groot & Steg, 2007b; de Groot & Steg, 2010; Fransson & Gärling, 1999; Schultz et al., 2005; Sharma & Jha, 2017). Studies on per-ceived value congruency, in particular, have shown its persuasive power when it comes to trig-gering behavior that is disadvantageous to one’s egoistic considerations (Cazier, Shao, & St. Louis, 2017). In line with this, perceived value congruency with biospheric, against egoistic, framing was found to mediate a positive effect from the article on behavioral intention via atti-tude towards sustainable fashion consumption. The more people agreed with the focus of the ar-ticle on environmental concerns as reflecting their own values, the more motivated they were to consume fashion more sustainably in the future. However, against the original assumption, per-ceived value congruency did not mediate effects from egoistic nor altruistic framing on attitude nor behavior.
Nonetheless, perceived value congruency had an independent direct influence on attitude in all cases. This means that, while the individual frames did not produce significant differences in perceived value congruency, it still matters to what extent one can relate to the perspective taken, or not. Considering that all three value orientations, egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric, are present within an individual, just to varying degrees, every frame might have been evaluated as highlighting aspects that correspond to one’s own values to a certain extent. Levels of perceived
value congruency hence differed between participants, but not between conditioned groups. Therefore, its explanatory value lies in its confounding role to theorize effects on attitude.
Classifying value orientations and their effects
Due to their similar effects and underlying mechanism, both biospheric and altruistic framing appear to belong to the same overarching value orientation of self-transcendence. This becomes evident in the mediation analysis, as both value frames are shown to work via negative emotional arousal. Specifically, they both provoke the same discrete emotions, indignation and/ or annoyance, which further increase positive attitude, and finally intention to consume sustaina-bly. However, the fact that the biospheric frame against the altruistic frame provoked a negative direct effect, supports the idea that, even though belonging to the same general concept, they are still to be distinguished (de Groot & Steg, 2008b; Schultz et al., 2005; Schultz, 2001).
While some previous research (e.g., Kareklas et al., 2014) did find small effects of egois-tic framing, this was not reproduced by the current study. This could be due to frame construc-tion, considering that the egoistic framing was not perceived of as significantly more negative than the purely factual article. Another explanation regards the nature of the frame, Kareklas et al. (2014) stressing benefits for the self to trigger green purchase intention, as opposed to nega-tive consequences of unsustainable consumption. Such a concrete emphasis of what people will gain, rather than what they have been losing, might indeed be more effective for people with a self-enhancement value orientation, considering that it reflects rational argumentation (de Groot & Steg, 2007a). However, even in Kareklas et al.’s (2014) study, the effect of the altruistic fram-ing was higher than for the egoistic. The results of the current study hence align with former re-search, and support the assumption that “normative and moral approaches may be a promising way to promote pro-environmental behavior” (Steg et al., 2014, p.113). Further studies could
contribute to these findings by examining the effects of combined value framing, in order to make self-enhancement values compatible with self-transcendent values, and ideally strengthen the latter (de Groot & Steg, 2008a; Steg et al., 2014; Steg & Vlek, 2009). Such research should further consider distinct sequences of combined frames, as current studies have found the order in which discrete emotions are evoked, so-called ‘emotional flow,’ to produce different persua-sive effects (Nabi, 2015; Nabi & Green, 2014).
Practical Implications
The previously discussed findings suggest that non-profit organizations will be more suc-cessful in campaigning sustainable consumption when appealing to self-transcendent values. Considering that the biospheric frame produced negative direct effects, when compared to the other two frames, the altruistic version might be the safest way to achieve positive results through evoking anger. On the other hand, taking into account the prevalence of altruistic fram-ing in the German mediavii, biospheric framing is more likely to add to existing knowledge. If ap-plied correctly, such diversification might be valuable to improve the quality of the discourse around the topic (Bagdikian, 1985).
However, it is crucial to minimize fear appeals within biospheric framing in order for the effects not to backfire. Instead, such articles should focus on elements that stimulate anger or compassion, as these emotions were shown to increase positive attitude towards sustainable fash-ion consumptfash-ion, and consequently behavioral intentfash-ion.
Finally, one needs to keep in mind that all effects were significantly stronger for people with high environmental concern. Further research is needed to find out how to reach people who are not yet sensitized for the issue.
Limitations
This study has certain limitations. First, the items measuring sustainable consumption
be-havior are based on intentions, hence do not illustrate actual bebe-havior in real life settings. Results
might therefore be skewed due to social desirability effects (Félonneau & Becker, 2008). As previously mentioned, values have the potential to trigger long-term behavioral change. However, this experiment measures short-term effects of different value frames. Further studies should therefore use a longitudinal design, such as repetitive or competitive framing ex-posure over time (e.g. Lecheler & de Vreese, 2013). This is even more important considering that values are not easily changeable, but rather firmly fixed within an individual’s character.
These limitations notwithstanding, the current research provides much needed evidence to support existing body of literature on both the importance of discrete emotions for framing ef-fect research, and the role of values in promoting pro-environmental attitude and behavior.
i The exploratory content analysis was carried out on a sample (N = 30) of selected articles, published on the
respec-tive blogs since 2015 up to the date of data collection (14/03/2018), that addressed at least one of the following as-pects:
• underlying motivations of sustainable fashion consumers,
• implications of (fast) fashion (over-) consumption for the environment, other people and consumers, • information on how sustainable fashion consumption helps solving the problem, or
• examples of how fashion can be consumed sustainably.
Additionally, only German or English material was considered. Based on these criteria, 19 texts were retrieved from the articles related to Greenpeace Germany’s (GPG) Detox My Fashion and MAKE SMTHNG campaigns, and 21 posts by Fashion Revolution (FR). Deductive coding was carried out manually by a single coder, based on an auton-omously developed codebook (see Appendix C for codebook and sample coding). The latter was based on what Lundblad and Davies’ (2016) identified as egoistic, altruistic, or biospheric considerations. Further, social norms, both descriptive and injunctive (following Cialdini, 2003; Schultz et al., 2007), and self-efficacy (Lorenzoni, Nichol-son-Cole, & Whitmarsh, 2007) were integrated in the codebook as appeals to such were found to significantly influ-ence pro-environmental attitude and behavior. By including them as fixed elements within all conditions, their effect could be controlled for when comparing the framing effects with the control group.
Surprisingly, having their respective missions in mind, the analysis showed that both non-profits predominantly ap-plied the biospheric value frame (GPG: 65%; FR: 55%), followed by altruistic framing (GPG: 22%; FR: 33%). These results are, however, limited due to the sample only including English- or German-language articles, while Fashion Revolution had numerous blogposts in other languages. Appeals to the egoistic value orientation were least prominent within the examined communication material (GPG: 21%; FR: 9%). Social norms were more promi-nently referred to by Greenpeace Germany (45% compared to 9%). Self-efficacy was also dominant within the arti-cles (GPG: 53%, FR: 55%).
ii Perceived valence was analyzed as potentially confounding variable. Considering that framing is operationalized in
terms of communicating negative consequences, the premise would be that the participants in the framing conditions perceive of the respective articles as significantly more negative than the respondents in the control condition. A cu-mulative odds ordinal logistic regression was run to test for a direct effect of attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption on behavioral intention. The assumption of proportional odds was met, as assessed by a full likelihood ratio test comparing the fit of the proportional odds location model to a model with varying location parameters, c2 (15) = 24.082, p = .064. The deviance goodness-of-fit test indicated that the model was a good fit to the observed data, c2(971) = 18.066, p = .259, only one cell showing zero frequencies (3.6%). The final model statistically signif-icantly predicted the dependent variable over and above the intercept-only model, c2(3) = 22.567, p < .001. Being exposed to the biospheric frame, as compared to purely factual communication, was associated with an increase in the odds of perceiving the content as more negative, with an odds ratio of .456, 95% CI [.225; .924], Wald c2(1) = 4.755, p < .05. Being exposed to the altruistic frame, against the control condition, was also associated with an in-crease in the odds of perceiving the content as more negative, with an odds ratio of .190, 95% CI [.090; .404], Wald c2(1) = 18.682, p < .001. However, being exposed to the egoistic frame, as compared to purely factual communica-tion, was not significantly associated with an increase in the odds of perceiving the content as more negative, Wald c2(1) = .881, p > .05. To get further insights on differences in valence between the biospheric or altruistic value frame, the same test was run with the egoistic condition as reference category. This further shows that while the dif-ference in valence between the egoistic and biospheric conditions is not significant, Wald c2(1) = 1.814, p > .05, being exposed to the altruistic value framing, as compared to the egoistic one, significantly increased the odds of perceiving the content as more negative, with an odds ratio of .267, 95% CI [.133; .535], Wald c2(1) =13.802, p < .001. These results have important implications for the analysis and interpretation, when comparing the effects of either the egoistic condition against the control group, or the egoistic value framing against the altruistic one. Results from other comparisons can be interpreted without limitations.
iii To get a more detailed picture of differences in underlying mechanisms and effects, the value frames were
addi-tionally compared to one another. Against the (0) egoistic frame, a negative direct effect of the (1) biospheric frame on attitude became evident (b = -.2994, SE = .1088, p < .05, 95% bca CI: -.5150; -.0838). However, the biospheric frame also increased negative emotions (b = .7691, SE = .2310, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .3114; 1.2268), and the latter enhanced positive attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption (b = .0915, SE = .0440, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0043; .1787). This way, the biospheric frame had a significant positive indirect effect on attitude (b = .0704, SE = .0414, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0047; .1738). More precisely, being exposed to the biospheric rather than the egoistic frame increased all sub-emotions apart from ‘guilty – ashamed’ (b = .4566, SE = .2594, p > .05, 95% bca CI: -.0573; .9705). The positive indirect effect of the biospheric frame on attitude was then mediated by ‘compassionate – af-fected’ (b = .0883, SE = .0509, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0089; .2120). In turn, due to the egoistic frame being significantly less frightening/ surprising than the biospheric frame (b = .8353, SE = .2602, p < .05, 95% bca CI: 1.3509; -.3197), it had a positive indirect impact on attitude for this pair of emotions (b = .0921, SE = .0418, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0295; .2043).
The (1) altruistic frame, against the (0) egoistic frame, also produced a significant positive indirect effect on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption through emotions (b = .0821, SE = .0421, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0198; .1917), mediated in such a way that the altruistic frame increased negative emotions, which then led to a more posi-tive attitude. Compared separately, it is the pair ‘indignant – annoyed’ that significantly mediated the effect of the altruistic frame on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption (b = .0504, SE = .0357, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0004; .1568).
When opposing the (0) altruistic and (1) biospheric frame, there was no significant mediation via emotions (b = .0012, SE = .0527, p > .05, 95% bca CI: -.0354; .0506). However, just like in comparison with the egoistic frame, the biospheric frame had a significantly negative direct effect on attitude towards sustainable fashion consumption (b = -.2194, SE = .0950, p < .05, 95% bca CI: -.4078; -.0310).
iv First, the (1) altruistic frame tested against the (0) control condition had a significantly positive effect on attitude
via increased negative emotions for people with high environmental concern (EC = 1; b = .0774, SE = .0500, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0111; .2242). The conditional indirect effect of the (1) altruistic frame on attitude via emotions was even higher for highly environmentally concerned persons, when tested against the (0) egoistic frame (b = .0889, SE = .0434, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0233; .1984). Finally, the same held for the (1) biospheric against the (0) egoistic frame, with the conditional indirect effect of the biospheric frame through increased negative emotions on
attitude being significantly positive for people who were highly environmentally concerned (b = .0670, SE = .0400, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0058; .1694). Considering the previously mentioned findings regarding significant sub-emo-tions when comparing effects of egoistic and biospheric framing, Model 7 was run again with ‘compassionate – af-fected’ and ‘frightening – surprising’ as parallel mediators. Results showed that people with high environmental concern were significantly more likely to have a more positive attitude due to feeling compassionate or affected (b = .1365, SE = .0586, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0473; .2858), while also being prone to developing a more negative attitude when being frightened or surprised (b = -.0872, SE = .0424, p < .05, 95% bca CI: -.2005; -.0237).
v Additionally, a cumulative odds ordinal logistic regression was run to test for a direct effect of attitude towards
sustainable fashion consumption on behavioral intention. The assumption of proportional odds was met, as assessed by a full likelihood ratio test comparing the fit of the proportional odds location model to a model with varying loca-tion parameters, c2 (8) = 4.506, p = .809. The deviance goodness-of-fit test indicated that the model was a good fit to the observed data, c2(971) = 498.063, p = 1.000, but most cells were sparse with zero frequencies in 84% of cells. However, the final model statistically significantly predicted the dependent variable over and above the intercept-only model, c2(1) = 80.191, p < .001. An increase in attitude was associated with an increase in the odds of intend-ing to consume fashion sustainably, with an odds ratio of 7.800, 95% CI [4.880; 12.467], Wald c2(1) = 73.710, p < .001.
vi PROCESS Model 6 was also run replacing the all-encompassing negative emotions variable with one pair of
dis-crete emotions at a time as first mediator, followed by attitude as second mediator. For (1) altruistic framing against (0) control group, this test led to significant results for serial mediation over ‘compassionate – affected’ (b = .1040, SE = .0669, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0188; .3001), ‘indignant – annoyed’ (b = .0805, SE = .0599, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0089; .2678), and ‘guilt – shame’ (b = .0531, SE = .0454, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0012; .1993). In the comparison (1) biospheric against (0) control condition, the following pairs of sub-emotions contributed significantly to the serial mediation on intention: ‘indignant – annoyed’ (b = .1103, SE = .0613, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0292; .2906), and ‘com-passionate – affected’ (b = .0829, SE = .0451, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0033; .2472). The latter even directly mediated the effect of the biospheric framing on intention, without attitude as second mediator (b = .1518, SE = .0738, p < .05, 95% bca CI: .0430; .3511). All serial mediations worked in such a way that value framing enhanced the negative sub-feelings, which, in turn, led to a more positive attitude, which, finally, provoked intention to consume fashion more sustainably. No significant serial mediation was found for the (1) egoistic framing against the (0) control con-dition. However, due to restrictions in Model 6, the pairs of emotions could not be controlled for against each other in their position as first mediator, which is likely to have modified the results.
vii An initial impression of searching news sites for articles about negative consequences of (fast) fashion production
and consumption finds them to predominantly focus on altruistic considerations. This might be due to the high atten-tion for the topic after the 2013 collapse of the Bangladeshi clothing factory Rana Plaza, which became the symbol of inhumane working conditions within the fashion industry (Hoskins, 2015). Germans might therefore not yet be well informed about the implications of (fast) fashion on environment. Further studies are needed, however, to em-pirically prove this assumption.
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