Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc Marketing, specialization Marketing Management
The Influence of Awe on Willingness
To Pay for CSR in Banking
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... 2
INTRODUCTION ... 3
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES ... 7
Socially Responsible Banking ... 7
Emotion research and CSR ... 9
Self-Conscious and Self-Transcendent Emotions... 9
Awe... 11 Prosocial Behavior ... 13 Nature Relatedness ... 15 METHODOLOGY... 17 Participants ... 17 Design ... 18 Materials ... 18 Procedure ... 21 RESULTS ... 22
Effects of Video Conditions ... 22
Awe and WTP ... 24
Mediating Effect of Prosociality ... 26
Moderating Effect of Nature Relatedness ... 28
Exploratory Analyses ... 30
DISCUSSION ... 32
Conclusion ... 32
Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research ... 33
Managerial Implications ... 35
INTRODUCTION
Banks and other financial institutions are the subject of attention nowadays. As financial intermediaries, banks perform critical functions such as the organization of the payment system, large scale investing, and the management of risks (Greenbaum & Thakor, 2007). Furthermore, banks often have the power to oblige firms and households to behave in certain ways (Scholtens, 2009). Due to their large influence, banks have a major impact on the economy and society (Scholtens, 2009; Weber, 2014). For instance, the last economic crisis has demonstrated how the world economy can seriously be affected by the actions of banks. Several examples of scandals and bad social performance have led to an increasing public interest in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of banks (Vilar & Simão, 2015).
Corporate social responsibility describes how firms, such as banks, not only seek to create value for shareholders, but also pay attention to the consequences of their actions on other stakeholders such as customers, employees, society, and the natural environment (Matute-Vallejo, Bravo, & Pina, 2011). A widely adopted framework in CSR is the “triple bottom line” of people, planet, and profits, which focuses on social and environmental concerns in addition to traditional financial criteria (Elkington, 1998). Examples of such concerns in the banking industry are human rights, tax evasion, climate change, and deforestation. The focus of this article will be on (1) the environmental and (2) the social component of CSR in the banking industry.
That the degree of corporate social responsibility of banks has become a topic of attention in the last decade is illustrated by the launch of the Fair Finance Guide in 2009. This benchmarking tool, created by collaborating civil society organizations, allows customers to compare banks on their social responsibility. Fair Finance Guide International offers the tool in eight countries and has the aim to “initiate a race to the top between banks on CSR” (Fair Finance Guide International, 2017). Academic interest in socially responsible banking is growing as well: scholars developed frameworks that assess banks on their CSR performance (e.g., Scholtens, 2009) and scrutinized the existing sustainability rating agencies (Chelli & Gendron, 2013).
destroying the earth. And finally, the willingness to pay a price premium for CSR could also be the result of a combination of cognitive and emotional drivers. Research shows that both emotions and cognitions influence consumer behavior, and that discrete emotions can affect decision making (Williams, 2014). Moreover, sustainable consumption behaviors (such as paying a premium for CSR) are found to correlate more with emotions than with cognitions. For example, consumer recycling behavior is not so much based on cognitive factors (e.g., knowledge about recycling or ecological conscience), but more on affective reactions (e.g., confidence and self-esteem) (Meneses, 2010). In the current article, the role that emotions play in customers’ choice decision for a bank that exhibits corporate social responsibility is investigated.
Earlier research has shown that the eliciting of self-conscious emotions such as pride and guilt may have a positive impact on sustainable consumption behavior (Antonetti & Maklan, 2014; Onwezen, Antonides, & Bartels, 2013). These conscious emotions require self-awareness and self-representations (Tracy & Robins, 2004), and therefore display the self as center of attention rather than one’s environment. Self-conscious emotions are the result of a comparison of the self with personal or social standards, which are often based on moral conduct. For this reason, the self-conscious emotions evoked by these standards stimulate altruistic and sustainable behavior (Onwezen, Antonides, & Bartels, 2013; Wang & Wu, 2016).
On the other side of the emotion spectrum, researchers have identified self-transcendent emotions, that reflect diminished self-importance and increased attention for others (Piff et al., 2015). Examples of these emotions are admiration, awe, disgust, and anger. The impact of self-transcendent emotions on sustainable consumption behavior has not been researched yet. To address this gap, this paper will explore the impact of self-transcendent emotions, more specifically the emotion awe, on customers’ willingness to pay a price premium for a socially responsible bank.
The emotional feeling that one can get when confronted with massive mountains, an overwhelming vista, or a complex piece of art or music, is familiar for many and is commonly referred to as awe. The emotion is triggered by the vastness of the awe-eliciting stimulus and the corresponding need of the recipient to adapt his/her mental frame of reference (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). In other words, in order to elicit awe, the viewed stimulus must exhibit such – physical or intellectual – vastness, that it cannot be fitted into existing mental frameworks. Experiencing awe is found to increase one’s sense of the self as part of a greater whole, shifting the focus of attention to the world rather than to the self (Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007).
than the self, can trigger a sense of “small self”, which causes one to care more for others and behave accordingly (Piff et al., 2015). Various authors found a positive relationship between awe and prosocial behavior (e.g., Joye & Bolderdijk, 2015; Piff et al., 2015; Prade & Saroglu, 2016). When consumers tend to behave more prosocially, it is likely that they will place value on the social component of CSR (i.e., care for “people” in the triple bottom line). Hence, I expect that increased prosociality, induced by awe, will positively influence a customer’s WTP for a bank that exhibits CSR.
The other component of CSR that this article focuses on is the environmental one (i.e., care for “planet” in the triple bottom line). Customers might not only care about CSR out of social concerns, but also out of concern for the natural environment. One who feels a strong connection with the natural environment will probably strive to preserve it. Therefore, it is likely that the relationship between experiencing awe and willingness to pay for a bank that exhibits CSR is positively moderated by one’s relatedness to nature. In other words, when an awestruck customer is willing to pay more for a socially responsible bank than a non-awestruck customer, this WTP is expected to be even higher for an awestruck customer who feels strongly related to the natural world.
All preceding arguments translate in the problem statement and research questions displayed in Table 1.
TABLE 1
Problem Statement & Research Questions Problem Statement
What is the influence of elicited awe, prosociality and nature relatedness on customers’ willingness to pay for a bank that behaves socially responsible?
Research Questions
1. Are awestruck customers willing to pay a higher price premium for a bank that behaves socially responsible than non-awestruck customers?
2. Are awestruck customers more prosocially oriented than non-awestruck customers? 3. Does higher prosociality, triggered by awe, lead to a higher willingness to pay for a bank
that behaves socially responsible?
Through formulating an answer to the questions stated in Table 1, this research may yield scientifically, managerially and societally relevant results.
Existing scientific research on awe addresses effects of elicited awe on consumer behavior, such as increased prosociality (Joye & Bolderdijk, 2015), increased willingness to share (Prade & Saroglu, 2016), and decreased materialism (Rudd, Vohs, & Aaker, 2012). However, the field is still young and no link has been made with sustainable consumption behavior such as paying a premium for a bank account at a bank that exhibits high CSR. In research on customer bank choice decisions, willingness to pay for CSR characteristics has not been investigated yet. Furthermore, the moderating role of participants’ nature relatedness on the main relationship is tested, which is one of the first appliances of the nature relatedness (NR) scale of Nisbet, Zelenski, and Murphy (2009) in combination with research on awe.
Managerial interest might be particularly focused on the antecedents of customers’ WTP for a “green” bank. What is the price premium that customers are willing to pay for a bank that exhibits corporate social responsibility, can this be enhanced by evoking self-transcendent emotions such as awe, and what role do other possible influencing factors such as prosociality and nature relatedness play? The outcomes of this paper could have implications for advertising and other marketing communication tactics.
For society, the pro-environmental and prosocial behaviors of banks are relevant and highly actual. These behaviors pertain not only the business operations of banking corporations themselves, such as building energy friendly headquarters. More importantly, banks are responsible for serious decisions about which corporations and activities to fund. They may be held responsible for the actions of their clients, considering that their knowledge and financial investments make it possible for these actions to occur (Heal, 2005). As Jean Rogers, CEO of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) states in a blog post: “With great power comes great responsibility — this sector [i.e., the financial sector] has power to fuel tremendous growth while also potentially creating negative externalities for society and the environment” (Rogers, 2013). This quote illustrates how, due to its power and impact on society, the financial industry has a large responsibility towards other people and the planet. The current paper strives to clarify customer preferences and behavior with regard to corporate social responsibility in banking.
explained. Third, results of the empirical analysis are given. Finally, resulting conclusions, limitations, indications for further research, and managerial implications are provided.
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES Socially Responsible Banking
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a major topic in business. Despite a vast body of research on the topic, a widely accepted single definition of CSR does not exist. Instead, various related definitions, conceptualizations, and theories have emerged (McWilliams, Siegel, & Wright, 2006). In the 1990s, the “triple bottom line” of people, planet, and profits was presented by John Elkington (1998). According to Elkington, firms should take the needs of all stakeholders into consideration, which requires concern for the firm’s economic, environmental, and social performance. Thus, coming from the viewpoint of firms only striving to maximize economic performance (“profits”), Elkington (1998) proposed a new view according to which firms should pay attention to the consequences of their actions for the natural environment (“planet”) and for human beings (“people”) as well. The triple bottom line serves as an essential constituent of corporate social responsibility for various authors (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). Consequently, attention for people, planet, and profits are recurring dimensions in CSR research. In an analysis of 37 definitions of CSR, gathered through an extensive literature review, Dahlsrud (2008) identifies five dimensions fundamental to the topic of corporate social responsibility: (1) the environmental dimension, (2) the social dimension, (3) the economic dimension, (4) the stakeholder dimension, and (5) the voluntariness dimension. The environmental dimension, the social dimension, and the economic dimension correspond to the triple bottom line of Elkington (1998), together with the stakeholder dimension. The fifth dimension of CSR identified by Dahlsrud (2008), the voluntariness dimension, underlines that the socially responsible actions of the firm are not prescribed by law. In other words, CSR activities go beyond legal obligations. These five identified dimensions can also be found in the – widely in literature adopted – definition of CSR by the European Commission: “a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis” (European Commission, 2001, p. 6). The environmental and the social dimension of CSR in the banking industry will form the scope of this article.
was the launch of the Equator Principles agreement by 10 financial corporations in 2003. The 10 Equator Principles are guidelines to support environmentally and socially responsible risk decision-making and are currently adopted by 76 financial institutions around the globe (EP Association, 2012). The underlying goals of the agreement are increasing attention among financial institutions on the societal impact of their actions and developing responsible environmental and social management practices. For example, by taking the amount of emitted carbon dioxide of an energy company into account when evaluating its loan application.
However, banks and other financial institutions are confronted with a lot of bad publicity regarding CSR. In the last decade, the financial news was characterized by many scandals and events that hurt the reputation of financial institutions and the financial industry as a whole. A non-exhaustive list of examples includes the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, the Libor manipulation scandal in 2012, the bail-out of several banks, and commotion about the high bonuses paid to executives. It is clear that these developments have severely damaged public trust in the banking sector. According to Fassin and Gosselin (2011), it is for banks – more than for other businesses – crucial to be seen as trustworthy and reliable, as trust is a bank’s major asset. They argue that it has been mostly due to a lack of integrity and social responsibility that a renowned bank like Fortis could collapse in 2008.
Emotion research and CSR
Cognitive drivers may well determine the willingness to pay a price premium for CSR in banking. For example, a customer may decide, based on reasoning, to pay a little extra for an account at a bank that exhibits CSR, with the goal of guarding the natural environment and other humans from harm. However, research shows that sustainable consumption behaviors like these are more likely to result from emotional drivers. For example, Meneses (2010) found that consumer recycling behavior is more akin to an emotional experience rather than that it would be the result of an intense processing of information. He advises policy makers to design recycling campaigns with greater emphasis on emotional than on cognitive aspects. Other empirical evidence also demonstrates that emotions have a significant influence on pro-environmental behavior (Carrus et al., 2008; Fraj & Martinez, 2006; Koenig-Lewis et al, 2014). Taking this into account, it is useful to determine which types of emotions are most likely to influence willingness to pay for corporate social responsibility.
Emotions are often associated with values, which are more deep and stable individual preferences. Values can be defined as the internal criteria that a person uses to assess people (including the self) and events and to select and justify actions (Schwartz, 1992). Schwartz (1992) has developed a very well-known theory of universal basic values, classifying personal value types along two linked value dimensions: openness to change vs. conservation and self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence. These two value dimensions can be considered as two continua. The first continuum describes to what extent a person wishes to follow his/her interests in unpredictable and uncertain directions (openness to change) or to what extent a person wishes to preserve the status quo (conservation). The second continuum describes to what extent a person wishes to enhance his/her own personal interests (self-enhancement) or to what extent a person wishes to transcend personal concerns and enhance the welfare of others and of nature (self-transcendence). The latter value dimension of self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence is useful for research on willingness to pay for CSR, since a willingness to induce personal costs to increase the welfare of others and nature can be regarded as a direct result of self-transcendent values. In the next subsection, I will discuss self-conscious emotions that are related to enhancement and transcendent emotions that are related to self-transcendence.
Self-Conscious and Self-Transcendent Emotions
outcome (i.e., when self-enhancement succeeds), positive self-conscious emotions such as pride and approval may occur. Conversely, when we evaluate ourselves negatively (i.e., when self-enhancement fails), negative feelings of shame, guilt, or embarrassment are likely to follow (Michie, 2009). Self-conscious emotions are experienced when people become aware of the fact that they have (not) lived up to their actual or ideal self-representation (Tracy & Robins, 2004). Thus, emotions such as pride, self-approval, shame, guilt, and embarrassment are all part of the category of conscious emotions and may influence customer behavior. The influence of self-conscious emotions on environmental and social behaviors has been investigated in literature. Feelings of pride amongst organizational leaders are positively linked to prosocial behaviors such as social justice and altruism (Michie, 2009). Moreover, pride fosters sustainable consumption behavior such as buying fair trade products (Antonetti & Maklan, 2014). Onwezen, Antonides, and Bartels (2013) describe how altruistic and pro-environmental behaviors are partly driven by anticipated feelings of pride and guilt. Hence, self-conscious emotions are likely to be drivers of customer involvement with CSR, given the focus of CSR on pro-environmental and prosocial organizational behaviors.
self-transcendent emotions. Nevertheless, the way in which prosociality is emotionally induced may well differ between these two emotion categories.
Given the lack of research on the impact of self-transcendent emotions on environmentally friendly behavior (i.e., the other component of CSR), I will explore the impact of a specific self-transcendent emotion that is often associated with both the natural environment and care for others: awe. In the following three subsections, I will introduce awe as a discrete emotion that is likely to enhance willingness to pay for CSR in the banking context, mediated through increased prosociality.
Awe
Awe is an emotion that can be evoked by, for instance, glorious sunsets, panoramic views, or great works of art (Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007). Stimuli like these may elicit a rare, intense emotional response that combines a high level of pleasure with a whiff of fear (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Authors from various domains, ranging from philosophy to sociology and religion, described the feeling of awe in several contexts (e.g., Ivanhoe, 1997; Weber, 1978) but it was not until recent that this emotion gained scientific interest of psychologists. In his preliminary work on basic emotions, Ekman (1992) proposes awe as a candidate to be considered as a distinct emotion, but not without emphasizing the lack of empirical research on the matter. In 2003, Keltner and Haidt published a comprehensive literature review on awe, reaping from various (scientific) disciplines such as philosophy, theology, sociology and psychology. They define awe as the positive emotional response to stimuli that are characterized by two key features: vastness and accommodation. Vastness refers to the great size of the stimulus or event compared with the self. This may not only be a matter of physical size (e.g., grand nature or a tall monument) but also of social size such as fame or prestige (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Furthermore, vastness may merely be implied by the stimulus, such as a mathematical equation that is not gigantic in itself but has the ability to explain and predict a vast number of physical processes (Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007). The need for accommodation is the other theme central to awe according to Keltner and Haidt (2003). They demonstrate that when the observed stimulus or event has such a large degree of vastness that it cannot fit into an individual’s existing mental frameworks, the individual is caused to adapt his/her mental schemas accordingly. This updating of the existing frame of reference is referred to as accommodation.
elicitors: social elicitors (e.g., a powerful leader or an experienced confrontation with a divine being), physical elicitors (e.g., a tornado or cathedral), and cognitive elicitors (e.g., a grand intellectual theory). All these elicitors have in common that they exhibit a great perceived vastness and cause a need for accommodation. Some banks that exhibit CSR use visual scenes in their communications that can be considered as awe-evoking. Consider for example the stills of a commercial by Triodos Bank UK (2017) in Figure 1, showing two small looking human figures on a large hill and the sunset over a vast solar panel park.
FIGURE 1
Stills of Triodos Bank UK Commercial “Unveiling the Triodos Current Account”
Various scholars adopted the work of Keltner and Haidt (2003) to further explore and test the feeling of awe and its consequences. For example, experiencing awe may lead people to feel that they have more time available (Rudd, Vohs, & Aaker, 2012), increase religious and spiritual feelings (Van Cappellen & Saroglu, 2012), lead people to be less persuaded by weak arguments (Griskevicius, Shiota, & Neufeld, 2010), and increase people’s desire to reside in nature (Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007).
self-transcendent emotions increase prosocial behaviors. For example, when feeling elevation through witnessing another person’s good deed, people are more inclined to help others (Schnall, Roper, & Fessler, 2010) and to engage in volunteerism (Cox, 2010). Similarly, feeling awe leads to the exhibition of various prosocial behaviors as well, as will be discussed in depth in the following subsection.
Prosocial Behavior
Researchers argue that when experiencing awe leads to a diminishment of the individual self, this in turn is likely to result in the exhibition of prosocial behaviors. According to Batson and Powell (2003, p. 463), prosocial behavior “covers the broad range of actions intended to benefit one or more people other than oneself – behaviors such as helping, comforting, sharing, and cooperating”. Thus, when feeling awed, people are more likely to act in a way that benefits others, mediated through a sense of small self.
Piff et al. (2015) did a series of experiments, wherein elicited awe triggered a sense of small self amongst the participants, which in turn led to the exhibition of various prosocial behaviors including sharing resources, helping someone in need, making ethical decisions, and scoring high on a psychological entitlement measure. A similar finding is done by Rudd, Vohs, and Aaker (2012) who showed that awestruck people were more willing to volunteer time to help others. Prade and Saroglu (2016) explain the theoretical reasons why awe is likely to lead to prosocial behaviors, namely (1) the attention shift from the self towards the environment, (2) decreased materialistic and individual concerns, and (3) a broadened time perception and decreased impatience. Furthermore, these authors empirically show how elicited awe increases participants’ spontaneous generosity and willingness to help a person in need. Joye and Bolderdijk (2015) showed how awe increased people’s propensity to share resources rather than maximizing personal outcomes. These authors did not find an effect of awe on willingness to donate money or other resources to a good cause, but this may have to do with the particular scale used in the study (Joye & Bolderdijk, 2015). Altogether, existing literature generally shows a positive relationship between awe and prosocial behavior. Hence, I expect to find a positive influence of awe on willingness to pay for the social component of CSR.
through increased prosociality – directly and indirectly linked with the willingness to pay for corporate socially responsible behavior.
Yet, counteracting forces might possibly play a role as well. Griskevicius, Shiota, and Neufeld (2010) demonstrate how elicited awe influences people to process messages in a systematic way, rather than relying on heuristics. This leads to a more careful scrutiny of provided arguments. As a result, awestruck individuals are less likely to be persuaded by weak arguments than non-awed individuals. This finding has implications for corporate social responsibility: when awestruck, customers may adopt a more skeptical view towards CSR claims of companies. More specifically, customers may be better able to detect “green washing”: attempts of firms that have a poor environmental performance to appear environmentally friendly through their communications (Delmas & Burbano, 2011). Therefore, an important annotation for firms who seek to exploit the possible relationship between elicited awe and willingness to pay for CSR is that customers may be skeptical in their evaluations of CSR efforts. This emphasizes the imperative to genuinely behave socially responsible, instead of merely applying a cosmetic gloss of CSR. In this research however, the difference between CSR communications and behaviors is not subject of examination: actual corporate social responsibility of a bank is the focal matter for which customers’ WTP is measured. Hence, the first hypothesis is as follows:
H1: Elicited awe has a positive effect on customers’ willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank.
2008). The differing degrees of prosociality among individuals are often explained by differing personality traits (Hilbig, Glöckner, & Zettler, 2014; Lönnqvist, Verkasalo, & Walkowitz, 2011).
Nevertheless, prosocial preferences and behaviors can be affected by external factors as well. For example, research has shown that prosociality is influenced by social class (Piff et al., 2010), being in an unfamiliar environment (Han, Li, & Shi, 2009), and also being exposed to beautiful nature (Zhang et al., 2014). Therefore, it may be expected that emotions can also influence prosociality. More specifically, given the general finding that awe leads to various prosocial behaviors, I expect that awe enhances customers’ prosociality, which in turn increases their willingness to pay for CSR. To measure if prosociality indeed fulfills this mediating role, I will measure respondents’ Social Value Orientation (SVO). The SVO is an oft used prosociality measure, defined as “stable preferences for certain patterns of outcomes for oneself and others” (Van Lange et al., 1997). In 1968, Messick and McClintock identified three value orientations among people: cooperative (i.e., prosocial), individualistic, and competitive (as quoted in McClintock & Allison, 1989). The SVO is measured through a decomposed game where participants are asked to distribute an amount of valuable points between themselves and an unknown other. In meta-analytical research, Balliet, Parks, and Joireman (2009) confirmed the relationship between SVO and cooperation in social dilemmas. This is illustrated by findings that a prosocial value orientation leads to prosocial behaviors such as donating (Van Lange et al., 2007) and volunteering time (McClintock & Allison, 1989). Furthermore, in previous research, the confrontation with awe-eliciting stimuli is demonstrated to lead to a more prosocial SVO of participants (Joye & Bolderdijk, 2015; Piff et al., 2015). This strengthens my expectation that elicited awe leads to increased prosociality among participants, which in turn positively influences their willingness to pay for a bank that behaves socially responsible.
H2: The relationship between elicited awe and customers’ willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank is mediated through customers’ prosociality.
Nature Relatedness
present still feel a connection with nature. For example, gardening and wilderness experiences such as backpacking are found to enhance attention levels, feelings of peacefulness and opportunities for reflection (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989). Furthermore, exposure to natural scenes reduces stress levels (Ulrich et al., 1991). Everyday evidence of the ever existing man-nature connection can be found in the popularity of zoos and parks.
However, the degree in which individuals feel the need to affiliate with nature differs. Social anthropologist Kay Milton states that “some people in western societies grow up to be nature lovers, actively concerned about the welfare and future of plants, animals, ecosystems and nature in general, while others seem indifferent or intent on destroying these things” (Milton, 2002, p. i). The individual differences in relationships with nature have stimulated researchers to develop a quantitative scale that measures the personal human-nature connection, especially since this has been linked to pro-environmental behavior (Hines, Hungerford, & Tomera, 1987). People who feel stronger connected to the natural world are more willing to make decisions that increase the well-being of the environment, even when this is at the expense of immediate self-interest, effort, or costs (Davis, Le, & Coy, 2011).
Nisbet, Zelenski, and Murphy (2009) developed the nature relatedness (NR) scale that measures individuals’ connection to nature in its affective, cognitive, and experiential aspects. Previous research has found a relationship between measured nature relatedness and pro-environmental behaviors such as the installation of solar panels and use of public transportation instead of a car (Kals, Schumacher, & Montada, 1999). Considering the environmental component of CSR (for example, a bank that solely invests in renewable energy sources), it can be expected that customers who feel strongly related to nature are engaged with corporate social responsibility, and that they may even be willing to incur personal costs to increase CSR. This would suggest that customers who feel related to nature are willing to pay a higher price premium for CSR than customers who feel less connected with nature. Hence, I expect that an awed person who feels strongly related to the natural world is willing to pay a higher price premium for a socially responsible bank than an awed person who feels less strongly related to nature. Therefore, I include customers’ nature relatedness score in my model as positively moderating factor.
H3: The relationship between elicited awe and customers’ willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank is positively moderated by customers’ nature relatedness.
FIGURE 2 Conceptual Model
METHODOLOGY
Participants
149 people (67 males, 81 females, 1 other/preferred not to answer; age: M = 30.14, SD = 10.66) participated in this study by completely filling in the survey. The participants in the sample selected themselves and were attracted through social media (Facebook, Whatsapp). Participants had the option of winning two movie tickets when they provided their email address at the end of the survey. The education level of participants ranged from primary school to master’s degree. The median of education level was bachelor’s degree. 19 participants were not included in the analyses because they failed to pass an attention check incorporated in the survey. Five participants took longer than 2 hours to complete the survey. This may indicate that they took a break during the survey, allowing the emotional effect of the awe manipulation to fade away. To prevent this from biasing the results, these five participants were excluded as well, resulting in a set of 125 remaining respondents.
Nature relatedness Prosociality + + + + Customers’ WTP for a bank that behaves socially responsible Elicited awe (high
Design
The study was a between-subjects design and was designed with the online survey platform Qualtrics. “Video condition” (grand nature vs. mundane nature vs. urban scenery) was the independent variable, and “willingness to pay for CSR” was the main dependent variable.
Materials Manipulation of Awe
Participants had to watch one of three possible embedded Youtube video clips of either grand nature, mundane nature, or urban settings. The grand nature condition (N = 41) consisted of a video of approximately 3 minutes, showing vast natural scenes of icebergs, steep mountain ranges, and a huge waterfall (Knitter, 2017a). In the mundane nature condition (N = 43), the video showed a walk through the forest of approximately 3 minutes, exposing the viewer to a non-spectacular natural scene that lacked vastness (Knitter, 2017b). Finally, in the urban condition (N = 41), a video of approximately 2.5 minutes showed a walk through a city, showing no physically vast or fascinating structures and containing no natural objects (Knitter, 2017c). Stills of the three video clips are depicted in Figure 3.
FIGURE 3
Stills of Environmental Condition Videos
Emotion Measurement
(based on Piff et al., 2015). Furthermore, to measure the sense of smallness that participants experienced, they were asked to rate on a 7-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) to what extent they had experienced the following states while watching the video: “I felt small or insignificant”; “I felt the presence of something greater than myself”; “I felt part of some great entity”; and “I felt like I was in the presence of something grand” (based on Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007).
Willingness To Pay for and Attitude towards CSR
Respondents’ willingness to pay for a bank account at a bank that exhibits CSR was measured through two questions, the first one assessing WTP for the environmental component and the second one assessing WTP for the social component. This was done by describing (1) an environmentally friendly bank and (2) a socially friendly bank. Beforehand, participants were informed that an account at a regular bank costs €1.40 per month, providing a checking account, debit card, savings account, and internet banking.1
Then, the environmentally friendly bank was described as follows: “Consider a bank account that provides identical services, but at a bank that behaves environmentally friendly. The notion “environmentally friendly” refers to the care that a bank has for its impact on the environment. Examples of environmentally friendly behaviors of this bank are the use of solar power, less paper use, and recycling. Furthermore, the bank chooses to invest only in organizations who minimize their CO2 emissions, strive to protect ecosystems, and are transparent about their impact on the natural environment”.
The socially friendly bank was described as follows: “Consider a bank account that provides identical services, but at a bank that behaves socially friendly. The notion “socially friendly” refers to the care that a bank has for its impact on society. For example, this bank donates money to local sports initiatives and poverty reduction programs. Furthermore, the bank fights discrimination and promotes diversity within its organization. In its investment policy, this bank only cooperates with organizations that respect human rights and fair labor practices. The bank demands that its clients guarantee the health and well-being of employees, local residents and customers”.
Subsequently, respondents answered the following open question for both banks: “Consider the fact that a bank account at a regular bank costs €1.40 per month. Are you willing to deviate from this price for an account at a bank that behaves environmentally/socially friendly? Remember that the services that the two bank accounts provide are identical. Note: if you don’t
want to deviate, and hence are willing to pay the same €1.40 as you do for a regular bank account, fill in 0. If you are willing to pay a price premium, fill in the amount that you are willing to pay over and above the regular €1.40 (for example, +0.30). If you demand a price discount, fill in a negative number. This is the amount you are willing to pay less than the regular €1.40 (for example, -0.30).”
After filling in their willingness to deviate from the baseline price, the participants rated the following statements about their attitude towards the focal bank on a 7-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree): (1) I like the described bank, (2) I would likely become a customer at the described bank, (3) I identify myself with the described bank, and (4) I have a positive attitude towards the described bank. The Cronbach’s alpha for the four attitudinal questions regarding the environmentally friendly bank is 0.924, and the Cronbach’s alpha for the four attitudinal questions regarding the socially friendly bank is 0.928.
Prosociality
The prosociality of respondents was measured through their Social Value Orientation (SVO), of which the scale was taken from Van Lange et al. (1997). In a choice situation, participants were asked to choose between three different options where valuable points were divided between the participant and a hypothetical other. Participants were asked to choose A, B, or C, depending on which column they preferred most. For example:
A B C
You get: 500 500 550
Other gets: 100 500 300
Nature Relatedness
A variety of proposed scales exist to measure the connection between man and nature. The scales are conceptually highly related and often exhibit a high correlation among each other. For this study, the nature relatedness (NR) scale developed by Nisbet, Zelenski, and Murphy (2009) is used. Other scales were less suitable for various reasons. Some, such as the connectedness to nature (CNS) scale (Mayer & Frantz, 2004; criticized by Perrin & Benassi, 2009) and the love and care for nature (LCN) scale (Perkins, 2010), are limited to only emotional or only cognitive connection. Others, like the inclusion of nature in self (INS) scale (Schultz, 2001), consist of a single item. The reliability of single-item scales cannot be computed and they are more vulnerable to random measurement errors (Hoeppner et al., 2011). Biospheric values (Stern, Dietz, & Kalof, 1993) describe one’s concern for protecting the biosphere, rather than a potential felt connection to nature that could trigger this concern.
Contrarily, the nature relatedness scale measures the “affective, cognitive, and experiential aspects of individuals’ connection to nature” (Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2009, p. 719). This scale is relatively stable over time and across situations, corresponding to a trait. Results exhibit a high internal validity and reliability, as well as correlation with existing measures of environmental attitudes and behaviors (Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2009). The nature relatedness scale has been widely adopted in environmental psychology, confirming its validity. To illustrate; results indicate a slightly positive effect of NR on well-being (Howell et al. 2011; Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2011) and a negative effect on anxiety (Martyn & Brymer, 2016). The measure consists of 21 statements, which participants in this study were asked to rate on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly). Examples of questions included are “I feel very connected to all living things and the earth”, “Conservation is unnecessary because nature is strong” (reversed), and “My ideal vacation spot would be a remote, wilderness area”. After recoding the reversed items, all 21 items were averaged to compute a single NR score (Cronbach’s α = 0.867).
Procedure
watch time did not differ significantly across the three video conditions, F(2, 122) = 1.23, p = .295. After watching one of the three videos, the respondents answered the emotion questions. This was followed by the SVO measure and the WTP assessment. The last part of the survey consisted of demographical questions regarding age, gender, education level, and income. Finally, the purpose of the study was explained and participants were thanked for their cooperation.
RESULTS
Effects of Video Conditions
In order to test to what extent participants experienced certain emotions while watching one of the three videos (i.e., the grand nature, mundane nature, or urban condition), I conducted a One-Way ANOVA with video condition as the between-subjects factor and the seven emotions (i.e., amusement, anger, awe, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness) as dependent variables. All analyses showed a statistically significant difference between the three video conditions. The results are summarized in Table 2, with the largest mean per emotion underlined.
TABLE 2
Video Conditions and Experienced Emotions
Grand nature Mundane
nature Urban F p
Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD)
Amusement 4.78 (1.53) b 4.53 (1.50)b 2.61 (1.45)a 25.61 <.001 Anger 2.41 (1.64)a 1.51 (0.94) b 2.93 (1.51) a 11.21 <.001 Awe 5.44 (1.34)c 4.51 (1.47)b 2.66 (1.48)a 40.14 <.001 Disgust 2.10 (1.55) b 1.40 (0.62) b 3.51 (1.94) a 22.59 <.001 Fear 3.07 (1.90) a 1.86 (1.32) b 2.95 (1.58) a 7.29 .001 Happiness 5.34 (1.20) b 5.56 (1.12) b 2.71 (1.25) a 73.85 <.001 Sadness 3.59 (1.98) a 2.23 (1.32) b 3.95 (1.66) a 12.45 <.001
2,86 (1.27) 4,08 (1.20) 5,1 (1.12) 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 5,0 5,5
Urban Mundane nature Grand nature
Me an (SD) o f Sen se of S mal ln ess Video Condition
Furthermore, the four rated statements measuring participants’ sense of smallness were grouped in the new variable “sense of smallness” (Cronbach’s α = 0.817). To test whether the video condition affected the sense of smallness of participants, I conducted a One-Way ANOVA with video condition as the between-subjects factor and sense of smallness as dependent variable. This One-Way ANOVA was significant, F(2, 122) = 35.77, p < .001. A Tukey’s HSD showed that participants’ sense of smallness differed between all three video conditions (p < .05). The mean scores and standard deviations of sense of smallness are displayed graphically in Figure 4.
In summary, participants who watched the video of grand nature experienced significantly more awe and sense of smallness than participants who watched the video of mundane nature and those who watched the video of urban scenery. This is in line with my expectations and serves as a manipulation check for the video stimuli.
FIGURE 4
Awe and WTP
Participants’ willingness to deviate from the standard price of €1.40 per month for the described environmentally friendly bank ranged from -50 to +50 euro. The median was 0.55 and the mean 1.37 (SD = 7.35). 1.6 percent of respondents asked a discount, 31.5 percent was not willing to deviate, and 66.9 percent was willing to pay a price premium. For the described socially friendly bank, the willingness to deviate lay between -1.40 and +50. The median was 0.30 and the mean 1.03 (SD = 4.59). 3.2 percent of respondents demanded a discount, 34.1 percent was not willing to deviate, and 62.7 percent was willing to pay a price premium.
The testing of Hypothesis 1, “Elicited awe has a positive effect on customers’ willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank”, consisted of two parts, corresponding to the two components of CSR (i.e., the environmental and the social component).
First, I tested the relationship between video condition and willingness to pay for an environmentally friendly bank. Having observed unequal variances, I conducted a One-Way Welch’s ANOVA with video condition as the between-subjects factor and WTP for an environmentally friendly bank as dependent variable. This One-Way Welch’s ANOVA was not significant, F(2, 80) = 1.58, p = .212. Participants’ willingness to pay for an environmentally friendly bank does not significantly differ between the grand nature condition (M = 1.95, SD = 7.75), the mundane nature condition (M = 2.53, SD = 8.07), and the urban video condition (M = -0.48, SD = 8.11). Additionally, simple contrasts revealed that no significant difference exists in participants’ WTP for an environmentally friendly bank between the grand nature condition and urban condition (p = .174) nor between the grand nature condition and mundane nature condition (p = .741).
condition and WTP for an environmentally friendly bank using Hayes’ (2017) moderation regression methodology does not yield significant results, F(5, 118) = 0.91, p = .475
Second, I tested the relationship between video condition and willingness to pay for a socially friendly bank. Having observed unequal variances, I conducted a One-Way Welch’s ANOVA with video condition as the between-subjects factor and WTP for a socially friendly bank as dependent variable. This One-Way Welch’s ANOVA was not significant, F(2, 72) = 0.52, p = .595. Participants’ willingness to pay for a socially friendly bank does not significantly differ between the grand nature condition (M = 0.60, SD = 1.00), the mundane nature condition (M = 1.80, SD = 7.62), and the urban video condition (M = 0.65, SD = 1.20). Similarly, simple contrasts revealed that no significant difference exists in participants’ WTP for a socially friendly bank between the grand nature condition and urban condition (p = .965), nor between the grand nature condition and mundane nature condition (p = .234).
Further, to test whether video condition influenced participants’ willingness to pay for a socially friendly bank while controlling for participants’ income level, I conducted a One-Way ANCOVA with video condition as between-subjects factor, WTP for a socially friendly bank as dependent variable, and income level as covariate. The results were not significant, F(2, 119) = 0.95, p = .390. After controlling for participants’ income level, participants’ willingness to pay for a socially friendly bank does not significantly differ between the grand nature condition (M = 0.60, SD = 1.00), the mundane nature condition (M = 1.80, SD = 7.62), and the urban video condition (M = 0.65, SD = 1.20).
In summary, there were no significant differences on participants’ willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank between the grand nature, mundane nature, and urban video conditions. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 cannot be confirmed.2
To further explore the data, I tested the non-hypothesized relationship between video condition and participants’ attitude towards a bank that exhibits CSR by performing two One-Way ANOVAs. The first One-Way ANOVA showed that attitude towards the environmentally friendly bank did not significantly differ between the grand nature video condition (M = 5.30, SD = 1.36), the mundane nature condition (M = 5.40, SD = 1.36), and the urban condition (M = 5.03, SD = 1.27), F(2, 122) = 1.12, p = 0.328. The second One-Way ANOVA showed that attitude towards the socially friendly bank also did not significantly differ between the grand nature video condition (M = 5.23, SD = 1.23), the mundane nature condition (M = 5.09, SD = 1.06), and the urban
2 All analyses were repeated while excluding participants who didn’t watch more than 10%, 50%, or 75%
condition (M = 4.97, SD = 1.13), F(2, 81) = 0.80, p = 0.621. Concluding, participants’ attitude towards a bank that exhibits CSR does not significantly differ between the three video conditions.
Mediating Effect of Prosociality
As described in the Methodology section, the overall prosociality score (SVO score) of participants was computed by averaging their altruism parameters (Cronbach’s α = 0.957). The SVO scores ranged from 16.7 to 50.0, with a mean of 44.19 (SD = 7.41). In order to test Hypothesis 2, “The relationship between elicited awe and customers’ willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank is mediated through customers’ prosociality”, I performed two mediation analyses, using the regression-based approach of Hayes (2013). The path diagram of the simple mediation model is given in Figure 5.
FIGURE 5
Path Diagram of Mediation Model
The results of the first analysis, with willingness to pay for an environmentally friendly bank, are given in Table 3. Prosociality a c' b Customers’ WTP for environmentally/socially friendly bank Video condition (grand
nature vs. mundane nature vs. urban scenery)
c Customers’ WTP for environmentally/socially
friendly bank Video condition (grand
TABLE 3
Results of Mediation Regression Analysis 1
Dependent variable: WTP for an environmentally friendly bank
b t p LLCI ULCI
(a path) Mundane nature condition* Prosociality -0.40 -0.25 .805 -3.63 2.83 (a path) Urban condition* Prosociality -0.59 -0.35 .725 -3.88 2.70
(b path) Prosociality WTP 0.03 0.35 .726 -0.16 0.23
(c’ path) Mundane nature condition* WTP 0.59 0.34 .736 -2.87 4.05 (c’ path) Urban condition* WTP -2.41 -1.35 .179 -5.93 1.12 (c path) Mundane nature condition* WTP -2.43 -1.37 .174 -5.94 1.08
(c path) Urban condition* WTP 0.58 0.33 .741 -2.87 4.03
The asterisk indicates a dummy coded categorical variable, with grand nature video condition as reference category.
Results of the first mediation analysis show that there was no significant indirect effect of video condition on WTP for an environmentally friendly bank through prosociality. Further, no direct effect of video condition on WTP was found.
TABLE 4
Results of Mediation Regression Analysis 2 Dependent variable: WTP for a socially friendly bank
b t p LLCI ULCI
(a path) Mundane nature condition* Prosociality -0.40 -0.25 .802 -3.59 2.78 (a path) Urban condition* Prosociality -0.09 -0.05 .959 -3.35 3.18
(b path) Prosociality WTP -0.04 0.74 .461 -0.07 0.16
(c’ path) Mundane nature condition* WTP 1.22 1.21 .229 -0.77 3.21 (c’ path) Urban condition* WTP 0.05 0.05 .963 -1.99 2.09 (c path) Mundane nature condition* WTP 1.20 1.20 .234 -0.79 3.18
(c path) Urban condition* WTP 0.04 0.04 .965 -1.99 2.08
The asterisk indicates a dummy coded categorical variable, with grand nature video condition as reference category.
The results of this analysis show that no significant indirect effect was found of video condition on WTP for a socially friendly bank through prosociality, neither was a significant direct effect of video condition on WTP found.
In summary, there was no significant difference in participants’ SVO scores between the grand nature, mundane nature, and urban video conditions. Furthermore, no significant relationship between participants’ SVO score and their willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank was found. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 cannot be confirmed.3
Moderating Effect of Nature Relatedness
The nature relatedness (NR) scores of participants, theoretically between 1 and 7, lay between 3.10 and 6.57 and were approximately normally distributed. The median was 4.76 (M = 4.76, SD = 0.80). Hypothesis 3, “The relationship between elicited awe and customers’ willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank is positively moderated by customers’ nature relatedness”, was tested with two regression analyses. Both included participants’ nature relatedness score as moderator and video condition as independent variable (methodology taken from Hayes, 2017). The first
3 All analyses were repeated while excluding outliers (WTP deviations of more than €10). This had no
regression included WTP for an environmentally friendly bank as dependent variable. This regression analysis was not significant, R² = 0.04, F(5, 118) = 1.07, p = .381. No significant relationship was found between the video condition and participants’ willingness to pay for an environmentally friendly bank, nor is this relationship being influenced by participants’ nature relatedness. Table 5 shows the results of this regression analysis.
TABLE 5
Results of Moderation Regression Analysis 1 Dependent variable: WTP for an environmentally friendly bank
b t p LLCI ULCI
Constant -4.70 -0.59 .559 -20.57 11.16
Mundane nature video condition* 13.88 1.23 .220 -8.41 36.17
Urban video condition* 10.01 0.93 .353 -11.23 31.26
Nature relatedness 1.36 0.84 .402 -1.85 4.58
Mundane nature condition* X Nature relatedness -2.82 -1.20 .234 -7.49 1.85 Urban video condition* X Nature relatedness -2.56 -1.18 .242 -6.87 1.75
The asterisk indicates a dummy coded categorical variable, with grand nature video condition as reference category.
TABLE 6
Results of Moderation Regression Analysis 2 Dependent variable: WTP for a socially friendly bank
b t p LLCI ULCI
Constant 0.09 0.02 .984 -9.07 9.26
Mundane nature video condition* 6.44 0.99 .324 -6.44 19.32
Urban video condition* -0.50 -0.08 .936 -12.85 11.84
Nature relatedness 0.10 0.11 .912 -1.75 1.96
Mundane nature condition* X Nature relatedness -1.14 -0.84 .404 -3.84 1.56 Urban video condition* X Nature relatedness 0.11 0.90 .929 -2.39 2.61
The asterisk indicates a dummy coded categorical variable, with grand nature video condition as reference category.
In summary, participants’ nature relatedness does not influence the relationship between video condition and willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank. Therefore, Hypothesis 3 cannot be confirmed.
Exploratory Analyses
TABLE 7
Correlation matrix showing Pearson’s R and descriptives for awe, smallness, WTP, and attitude
Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Degree of experienced awe -
2. Sense of smallness .57* -
3. WTP for environmentally
friendly bank -.05 .03 -
4. WTP for socially friendly
bank -.11 -.03 .56* -
5. Attitude towards
environmentally friendly bank .16 .12 .02 -.04 -
6. Attitude towards socially
friendly bank .15 .17 .03 -.06 .63* -
M 4.21 4.01 1.37 1.03 5.25 5.10
SD 1.83 1.50 8.02 4.59 1.17 1.14
* Correlation is significant at p < .01(2-tailed).
DISCUSSION
Conclusion
This research was performed to find out whether customers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for corporate social responsibility (CSR) when choosing a bank is being influenced by the self-transcendent emotion awe. Participants were shown one of three video conditions containing either footage of grand nature, mundane nature, or urban scenery. The grand nature video condition was designed to elicit awe amongst participants. After watching the video, participants’ willingness to pay for (1) a bank that behaves environmentally friendly and (2) a bank that behaves socially friendly was measured, corresponding to the environmental and the social component of CSR. The main hypothesis was that elicited awe would increase participants’ willingness to pay for a bank account at a bank that exhibits CSR. This hypothesis was based on existing research: awe elicited by grand nature is found to increase both prosocial behavior such as generosity and helping others in need (Piff et al., 2015) and pro-environmental behavior such as signing a climate change petition (Davis, 2016).
Results show that the grand nature video condition significantly elicited a higher degree of awe and sense of small self among participants than the mundane nature and urban video conditions did. This is in line with existing research showing that, when confronted with vastness and a resulting need for accommodation, people feel awed and less self-focused (Keltner & Haidt, 2003; Shiota, Keltner, & Mossman, 2007). Furthermore, participants in the grand nature condition experienced higher degrees of fear than participants in the other conditions. Keltner and Haidt (2003) proposed that awestruck people indeed may feel some kind of fear or threat, induced by the vast awe-evoking scene.
The first research question asked whether awestruck customers are willing to pay a higher price premium for a bank that exhibits CSR. The analyses showed that there were no significant differences in willingness to pay for CSR between participants in the three video conditions, nor between participants in the grand nature condition and those in the other two conditions. Furthermore, no significant relationship is found between the degree of experienced awe and participants’ willingness to pay for CSR when choosing a bank.
diminishment of the individual self, decreased materialism, and decreased impatience. However, the mediation analysis I performed showed that participants in the three video conditions did not significantly differ in their SVO scores. Hence, the conclusion is that awestruck people in this study are not more prosocially oriented than non-awestruck people. This is contrary to earlier research, which found a positive relationship between awe and prosociality (Joye & Bolderdijk, 2015; Piff et al. 2015; Prade & Saroglu, 2016). Possible explanations for this inconsistent finding are discussed in the following subsection, together with the potential limitations of this research.
Additionally, the third research question asked whether increased prosociality would, in turn, lead to a higher willingness to pay for CSR given the fact that care for other people is an important component of CSR. However, no significant relationship between the observed SVO scores and willingness to pay for a socially responsible bank has been found. These results could not confirm the existence of a mediating role of prosociality in the relationship between awe and customers’ willingness to pay for CSR when choosing a bank.
Finally, the fourth research question asked whether the main relationship between elicited awe and willingness to pay for CSR was moderated by participants’ nature relatedness. It was hypothesized that awed participants who felt a strong connection with the natural world would be willing to pay more for CSR than awed participants who feel a less strong connection with nature. This relates to the environmental component of CSR, as existing research shows that nature relatedness increases pro-environmental intentions and behaviors (Hinds & Sparks, 2008; Kals, Schumacher, & Montada, 1999). To test the hypothesis, the nature relatedness (NR) score of participants was measured before they were exposed to one of the three video conditions. Inclusion of this NR score in the analysis revealed that nature relatedness does not influence the relationship between awe and customers’ WTP for a socially responsible bank. It may well be that the main relationship was not strong enough to be influenced by participants’ nature relatedness.
Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research
The utility and generalizability of the findings of this paper may be limited by certain study design aspects which are presented in this subsection, together with ideas and enhancements for future research.
especially students, tend to be more constrained by budget limitations. The prediction that this sample has a small budget is supported by the notion that 37.6 percent of the respondents has a reported net monthly income of lower than €1000. Additionally, I found some statistical evidence that awe might influence willingness to pay for the environmental component of CSR when controlling for income. However, no evidence was found that income moderated the relationship between elicited awe and willingness to pay for CSR. Nevertheless, repeating with a more diverse sample of participants may yield differing and more generalizable results.
Second, it is unknown whether participants were awestruck throughout the whole survey. The awe eliciting effect of the grand nature video versus the other two video conditions has been proven, but it may well be that this effect dispersed while participants filled in the remaining survey questions. This is amplified by the lengthiness of the survey, as it took approximately 20 minutes to fill in all questions. This length is the result of combining the survey questions with another study that also made use of the three video conditions. Although controlling for question order (i.e., did the participant directly answered the questions of this study after watching the video or did he/she answer the questions of the other study first) had no effect on the results, it is still possible that the emotional effect of the video faded away quickly. Despite not having found any effects of video condition, some evidence of the exploratory analyses indicates that experienced awe may have a positive effect on attitude towards an environmentally friendly bank and that a sense of small self may positively influence attitude towards a socially friendly bank. Hence, in future research on this topic, it might be effective to include a second emotional measure at the end of the survey to control for fading emotional effects of the video. Further, it is likely that a real-life awe-eliciting scene has a stronger awe-inducing effect and dissipates less quickly than a watched video. Hence, it would be preferable for future studies to elicit awe through existing, tangible grand nature, such as the tall eucalyptus grove used by Piff et al. (2015, study 5).
Fourth, this research was conducted in an experimental setting. Participants were asked to report their willingness to pay for a theoretical corporate socially responsible bank. It may well be that in a real-life choice situation, customers are less tolerant to price premiums for CSR than they report in this research. In order to be able to draw solid conclusions about customer willingness to pay for CSR, future research should be conducted in a more realistic setting such as a field experiment.
Fifth, it would be interesting to investigate whether other emotions influence customers’ willingness to pay for CSR. The results of this study indicate that the self-transcendent emotion awe does not have an effect on WTP, but the effects of other self-transcendent emotions such as admiration have not been investigated yet and may differ from those of awe. Further, self-conscious emotions such as pride and guilt may influence customers’ WTP for CSR as well.
Finally, it has been discussed in the Literature Review section of this paper that awe leads people to process messages in a systematic way, thereby scrutinizing arguments more carefully. This may make customers more skeptical about CSR claims. An idea for future research is to investigate whether awestruck customers indeed are better able to detect green washing (i.e., to uncover false or exaggerated environmentally friendly claims by firms).
Managerial Implications
In the light of increased public interest in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of banks, this research investigated customers’ willingness to pay for CSR, more specifically the environmental and the social component of CSR. A standard bank account was introduced for the cost of €1.40 per month, after which participants could indicate their willingness to deviate from this price for an account at a bank that exhibits CSR. Results show that more than 60 percent of the customers are willing to pay a price premium for a bank account at a bank that behaves socially responsible. On average, customers are willing to pay over €1 per month extra, which is a price premium of over 70 percent. This evidence indicates that customers do not just have high expectations regarding CSR in the banking industry (Pérez & del Bosque, 2014), they are also willing to accept significantly higher monthly costs in exchange for corporate social responsibility demonstrated by their bank. It should be noted however that the willingness to pay is self-reported by participants, their actual behavior when choosing a bank should be tested in future research.
that eliciting awe would increase customers’ willingness to pay for CSR when choosing a bank. However, this hypothesis was not supported. Furthermore, awe was found to hardly influence customers’ attitude towards a socially responsible bank. This has implications for the design of communications such as advertisements and commercials: the evidence of this paper indicates that eliciting awe among customers does not have a significant effect, at least not in terms of WTP for the bank account and attitude towards the bank.
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