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Which messages are most effective in encouraging consumers to actively participate in promoting the ethical issue of food waste?

by

Niek van de Ven

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

Master Thesis MSc Marketing

Februari 2016

Uilenburgstate 14 8925 HT Leeuwarden 06-52431302

n.a.van.de.ven@student.rug.nl s1967312

Supervisor: dr. J. van Doorn

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Management summary

This research is focused on finding the effect of messaging on the consumers’ willingness to actively participate in promoting ethical consumption. Previous research has shown that participants seemed most receptive to changes in their purchasing when a particular news story forced them to think about an ethical issue or when they were personally affected, indicating that a message that reminds them of an ethical issue could change the way they behave. An example of active

participation by consumers is debating and reflecting on consumer choices that may be deemed too environmentally or socially harmful and thus should be regulated. However, little is known about how to encourage these concerned citizens to actively participate. The willingness to separate waste, conserve energy and buying eco-labelled products shows that people feel the obligation to act in a pro-environmental way, but what about the willingness to actively participate in

communities to stimulate other, not yet concerned, citizens? And what messages are most effective in encouraging concerned citizens to actively participate? Also, does the difference in locus of control, the believe of one’s impact on ethical issues, affect the way people react to the messages?

This research showed us that the different messages do not significantly affect the willingness of consumers to actively participate in promoting the food waste issue nor in increasing the pro- environmental behavioural intention of consumers. Also, the expected moderator effect of the locus of control of an individual on the way they perceive messages and strengthen the effect of messages on willingness to actively participate was insignificant. However, the findings of this article indicate that respondents who have a biospheric value orientation, people that scored high on preventing pollution, respecting the earth, unity with nature and protecting the environment, are more likely to show pro-environmental behavioural intention and actively participate in the form of contributing money to an organization that prevents food waste, signing a petition in support of tougher food waste laws, and participating in a demonstration against companies that waste a lot of food. More importantly, respondents with a biospheric orientation were significantly more likely to join our ethical consumption community. Also, people scored higher on pro-environmental behavioural intention when they were confronted with a self-interest message as compared to those confronted with an ecological or generational message, the effect was surprising but not significant.

Based on these findings, more research is needed on the effects self-interest messages on both pro- environmental behaviour and active participation, and also on the side effects of using a self-interest appeal to promote pro-environmental behaviour.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction ... 4

2. Literature review ... 6

2.1 Ethical decision making ... 6

2.2 Active participation ... 7

2.3 The effectiveness of different messages in stimulating ethical choices ... 8

2.4 Locus of control ... 9

3. Theoretical framework... 12

3.1 Conceptual model ... 12

3.2 Hypotheses ... 13

3.2.1 Self-interest, ecological interest, and generational interest messages ... 13

3.2.2 Locus of control ... 14

4. Research design ... 15

4.1. Research method ... 15

4.1.1. Locus of Control items ... 15

4.1.2. Messages ... 16

4.1.3. Pro-environmental behavioural intention ... 17

4.2. Plan of analysis ... 18

5. Results ... 18

5.1 Descriptive statistics ... 18

5.2. Reliability ... 19

5.3. Effects on active participation ... 20

5.4. Effects on pro-environmental behavioural intention ... 22

6. Conclusions and recommendations ... 23

References ... 25

Appendices ... 30

Appendix A: Survey questions ... 30

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1. Introduction

In the US a group of fishers who were concerned about the safety and health of their local food supply, because of the thoughtless, long-standing, and profit-driven pollution of a particular river, provided the spark that ignited a much larger movement to protect the nation’s rivers (Wilkins, 2005). Profit-driven pollution, as is shown in the example, is one of the problems resulting from our excessive consumption behaviour. More than a billion people are living at a material standard of living that is supposed to be able to support only 400-800 million people, and another five billion people aspire to this standard of living, maintained through unsustainable consumption patterns (Jernelöv & Jernelöv, 1993). People buy more than they need for basic subsistence and are concerned for their self-interest, rather than mutual, communal interest of ecological interest (McGregor, 2002). In other words, we use more than our share of the Earth’s resources, and this is worrying for generations to come. To preserve the earth for future generations, thus preserving the inter-generational equity, which is the equity of people alive now and that of future generations (McGregor, 2002), there is a need to change towards more ethical consumption behaviour in which we think about the ecological and generational consequences of our purchasing behaviour.

In the study of Bray et al. (2011), participants seemed most receptive to changes in their purchasing when a particular news story forced them to think about an ethical issue or when they were

personally affected. So, when people are confronted with a message that mentions the ethical issue they are more likely to consume ethically. However, our research is not aimed at what messages are more likely to encourage ethical consumption. To explain what we want to research we have to return to the example of the protection of the US rivers by the fishers. This example showed us the impact a small group of concerned citizens can have on a problem that affects us all. The article of Schultz (2002) discusses the importance of focussing on this smaller group in increasing the awareness and concern for sustainability. Schultz argues that focussing on this smaller group of concerned citizens is more likely to lead to much-needed change in the short term and open the doors for others to follow. It is therefore important that these concerned citizens are willing and have the opportunity to share their concern, and thereby actively participate in addressing the ethical consumption issues to the larger public. An example of how concerned citizens could share their concern with others can be found in the article of McGregor (2001), which argues that through participatory consumer-citizenship, consumers could debate, deliberate, and reflect on consumer choices that may be deemed too environmentally or socially harmful and thus should be regulated.

Currently there is no evidence of huge communities of participating citizens (Scammell, 2000), and little is known about how to encourage these concerned citizens to actively participate. There is

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evidence that people feel the obligation to act in a pro-environmental way, which is proven by the willingness to separate waste, conserve energy and buying eco-labelled products (Kaiser, 2006), but what about the willingness to actively participate in communities to stimulate other, not yet

concerned, citizens? And what messages are most effective in encouraging concerned citizens to actively participate?

General knowledge is that people respond differently to different appeals of messages, for example ecological or economic appeals, and one message may have a stronger effect than the other (Bolderdijk et al., 2011). We want to find out what type of message, or which appeal, is most effective in encouraging people to actively participate, for example in communities, with the goal to solving ethical consumption issues and contribute to creating awareness for these concerns among the non-concerned consumers.

We also want to research the effect of the Locus of Control of a person on the effect a specific message has on the willingness to actively participate. Locus of Control is a well-established concept in literature and is concerned with the extent to which individuals believe events are contingent upon their own behaviour or characteristics (Rotter, 1966). We think that consumers might feel that their individual actions have no impact, and that this might be the reason why concerned consumers might be hesitant to actively participate. For example, in the research of Bray et al. (2011), when a participant was asked about the effect of being a vegetarian has, the answer was that she could be a vegetarian, but at the end of the day they are still going to kill all the animals, which indicates that this person does not feel that her individual actions have an effect on the larger system. The relation between locus of control and ethical behaviour has been studied and findings are that students with an external orientation, those that believe that often the outcome of events are beyond their control, are significantly less ethical than students with an internal orientation, the ones that believe that the outcomes of an event are a result of their own behaviour (Hegarty and Sims, 1978; 1979).

This article will first summarize the existing literature concerning the topics of ethical consumption, active participation and the different appeals of messages. Next the theoretical framework of this research will be described and the constructs associated with the research are defined. In this chapter, the conceptual model, the hypotheses and the research question will also be explained in further detail. In the research design chapter of this article, the data collection and data analysis will be explained. Subsequently, the results of the research are presented, analysed and discussed. This article ends with a discussion, including the recommendations for further research and the

limitations of this research.

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2. Literature review

In the introduction of this article we mentioned that according to McGregor (2002), people buy more than they need for basic subsistence and are concerned for their self-interest, rather than mutual, communal interest of ecological interest. The article of Meulenberg (2003) investigates this issue by arguing that sustainable consumption is based on a decision-making process that takes social responsibility into account in addition to individual needs and wants. Both of these researches indicate a distinction between self-interest, the individual needs and wants, and the interest for others, social responsibility. According to Vermeir & Verbeke (2005) and Verdant (1997), people are heavily driven by individual needs and pay little attention to the environmental consequences of the manufacturing and disposal of the products they consume. A minority of consumers however, does take the ethical consequences into account and temper his or her desires by social awareness and sacrifice personal pleasure to communal well-being. In literature, these consumers are called ethical consumer, consumer-citizen or responsible consumer (Gabriel & Lang, 1995; Hansen & Schrader, 1997). The article of Vermeir & Verbeke (2005) profiled the ethical consumer as a middle-aged person with a higher income, above average educated, with a prestigious occupation and who is well-informed (Roberts, 1996; Carrigan and Attalla, 2001; Maignan and Ferrel, 2001).

Hansen & Schrader (1997) and Gabriel & Lang (2006) further argue that ethical consuming implies a balance of duties and rights, meaning that because consumers have the right to choose, they also have the duty, or responsibility, to confront the implications of one’s choices. However, consumer researchers and policy makers rarely consider the duties of consumers (Hilton, 2005) and Prothero et al. (2011) suggests that more research is needed on people’s perceptions of their civic duties and how they balance these duties with self-interests.

2.1 Ethical decision making

The model of Hunt and Vitell (Hunt & Vitell, 1986) attempts to explain the decision-making process for problem situations having ethical content. In their model, ethical decision making begins with the perception of an ethical problem and is influenced by a number of exogenous variables. Individuals make deontological (obligations and rules) and teleological (guided by the consequences of actions) assessments of all possible alternative behaviours to arrive at an overall ethical judgement which guides their intentions and hence their behaviour (Bray et al., 2011). Hunt and Vitell argue that all normative ethical theories can be classified as either deontological or teleological. Deontologists want to determine the best set of rules to live by and they believe in the golden rule ‘doing unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Teleologists propose that people should determine the consequences of various behaviours in a situation and evaluate the goodness or badness of all the

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consequences. A behaviour is ethical if it produces a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative (Hunt & Vitell, 1986). They also discuss the term ethical universalism, also called utilitarianism, which means that an act is right only if it produces a greater balance of good

consequences for all people than other available alternatives, and not only the individual. However, a possible problem with this are that all the different outcomes on different kinds of people is hard to measure for an individual (Hunt & Vitell, 1986).

The research of Vitell, Singhapakdi, and Thomas (2001) tested the Hunt-Vitell theory in a consumer context. Results indicated that while deontology and teleology were both important in making decisions, consumers tend to rely more on ethical norms (deontology) than on consequences (teleology) when forming ethical judgments and intentions. In other words, if people feel that they are obligated to make an ethical choice they are more likely to do so than when they balance the consequences of their choices.

Another model that focuses on ethical decision making is the one from Rest (1986). Rest (1986) proposes a version of the planned behaviour model in which individual consumers pass through four consecutive stages towards an ethical purchase: recognition of the ethical issue; application of ethical judgement; resolution to place ethical concerns ahead of others; and action on the ethical issue. The first step is recognition of the ethical issue; however, many articles argue that the recognition of the ethical issue is the problem. So, people are not aware of the ethical problem (stage 1) so they cannot advance to the second, third or fourth stage of this model, and thus will not act on the ethical issue (stage 4).

2.2 Active participation to promote the ethical and political responsibility of all the consumers As we mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, more research is needed on people’s perception of civic duties and how they balance these duties with self-interests. Prothero et al.

(2011) suggests that active participation in the marketplace is one of the key duties of ethical consumers and Prothero et al. (2011) also suggests that consumer researchers explore questions as:

How do people value and make trade-offs among social, ecological, and generational consumption consequences, and how do people engage others in discussions and deliberations of the

environmental and social consequences of consumption? These suggestions for further research show that we know little about the effects of active participation of consumers and that there is a need for experimental research on this topic.

To explain the concept of active participation, we use a statement that is used in the article of McGregor (2001): through participatory consumer citizenship consumers could debate, deliberate,

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and reflect on consumer choices that may be deemed too environmentally or socially harmful and thus should be regulated. There has been an emergence of initiatives and movements campaigning around issues as fair trade, corporate social responsibility, and sustainable consumption. These fair trade campaigns, sustainable consumption, ethical trade audits and campaigns, are labelled as consumer-oriented activism and present a model of responsibility that connects individual and household consumption to broader mobilisations (Durning, 1992; Newholm, 1999; Barnett et al., 2005). In this way, a narrow sense of individualised ethical responsibility is transformed into a practice of collective, political responsibility (Barnett et al., 2005). Political responsibility represents individualised actions as part of a collective project that demands responses and imposes obligations on corporations, governments, and regulatory agencies. This means moving from routine everyday activities, like shopping, towards more formal practices of campaigning and configure self-

consciously ethical consumers as potential agents of collective mobilisation, capable of responding to demands for political responsibility (Barnett et al., 2005).

As we mentioned before, consumer researchers and policy makers rarely consider the duties of consumers (Hilton, 2005) and most consumers are not aware of their responsibilities or duties towards ethical consumption and therefore do not change their consuming behaviour towards sustainable or ethical consumption. Only a minority of consumers are aware of the consequences of their consumption behaviour and are able to act on it (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2005). Knowing how to motivate consumers to actively participate, in for example a campaign that promotes ethical consumption, and researching the effect of different messages on the willingness to actively participate is an important step towards a more ethical consumption lifestyle of all consumers.

2.3 The effectiveness of different messages in stimulating ethical choices

The article of Dogan et al. (2014) discusses the consumers’ perception of the worthiness of changes in behaviour and how it may differ depending on whether environmental or financial savings are emphasized. This article argues that providing feedback to consumers that may not be aware of the consequences of their behaviour could promote behaviour changes and reduce energy

consumption. The type of motive elicited by the feedback affects the extent to which people think the behaviour is worth investing effort. In other words, the type of motive in the feedback or message, in this case environmental and financial motives, differ in the amount of effect they have on behavioural change. The results of this research were that environmental saving motives are considered more worthwhile for people’s effort to change than financial savings motives. These findings challenge the consensus among policy makers and marketers that appealing to monetary gain is the most effective way to encourage sustainable actions (Dogan et al., 2014).

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Another article that researched the effect of different motives on behavioural change is the article of Bolderdijk et al. (2011). The authors make use of four different appeals: a biospheric appeal with a pro-environmental message, an economic appeal with a self-interest message, a safety appeal and a control coupon with no specific message. The authors did a field experiment offering coupons for a free tyre check with the different appeals written on them to find out which appeal persuaded people the most. 23 coupons were taken from which 11 had a biospheric appeal, 7 a control appeal, 5 a safety appeal and 0 coupons with an economic appeal were taken. This shows that economic appeals elicited less compliance than environmental and control appeals. Another result of this research is that the biospheric appeal has a bigger emotional effect on people than an economic appeal.

In the introduction part of this article we mentioned the importance of preserving inter-generational equity. Munda (1997) describes inter-generational equity as leaving future generations with a total stock of capital not smaller than the one enjoyed by the present generation. Generation can be defined as a cohort born during a specific time period and having common historical experiences (Edmunds & Turner, 2002; Miller, 1999). Young (1995) defines a generation as a period of time between the birth of parents and their children. However, these definitions are used for specific historical or age-difference studies and are not appropriate for assessing environmental

sustainability and inter-generational equity (Pan & Kao, 2008). According to Pan & Kao (2008), environmental problems impact on humans of all ages and should not focus on a few specific ages only. Since the industrial revolution, lifestyles have changed a great deal and the sustainability of the environment has also greatly been affected. Pan & Kao (2008) define generations as people who live in the same era and have a common lifestyle that impacts the environment. However, in recent decades, people’s lifestyles have rapidly changed and the resulting impact from human activities on the environment is increasing accordingly (Rosa, 2003).

2.4 Locus of control

We know from research that Locus of Control has an effect on motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1991;

Sheldon et al., 1997). These researchers discovered that people whose motivation is authentic, as in self-authored, have more interest, excitement and confidence than those that are merely externally controlled which in turn is manifested as enhanced performance, persistence, and creativity.

Therefore, Locus of control is likely to have an effect on one’s willingness, or motivation, to actively participate. Rotter (1966) defines Locus of control as the extent to which individuals believe events are contingent upon their own behaviour or characteristics (Rotter, 1966). In the research of Singhapakdi & Vitell (1991) about deontological norms in which they also take locus of control into

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account, the distinction is made between individuals having either an external locus of control or an internal locus of control. They argue that individuals with an external locus of control tend to believe that ethical dilemmas are beyond their control whereas those with an internal locus of control believe that their actions do have an effect on ethical dilemma and are therefore more likely to make ethical decisions in defiance of conflicting social or situational pressures (Singhapakdi & Vitell, 1991). Another effect of Locus of Control is the effect on achievement attribution. Researchers found out that attributing success to an external cause enhances one’s gratitude and attributing failure to internal causes is linked to shame, but attributing it to external causes is linked to anger (Weiner, 1985; 1992). These studies show the affective consequences of having an external or internal locus of control.

The findings of Singhapakdi & Vitell, 1991, are consistent with the research of Hegarty and Sims (1978; 1979), who found that students with external orientations are significantly less ethical than their counterparts (Singhapakdi & Vitell, 1991). An example from the study of Bray et al. (2011) is that a vegetarian member said it was unacceptable for her to consume a chicken and she feels that her actions could make a difference, which indicates an internal locus of control. While a second participant said she could be a vegetarian but at the end of the day they are still going to kill all the animals. The second participant thinks that a change in her consumption pattern would have no impact, thus indicating an external locus of control.

Another article that researched the effects of locus of control is the article of Trevino and

Youngblood (1990), in which the authors measured the effect of variables such as vicarious reward, vicarious punishment, cognitive moral development and locus of control on ethical decision making behaviour. Results of this study were that out of these variables, locus of control has the strongest effect on ethical decision making.

Table 1 summarizes some of the findings in existing literature that have guided our research in determining the effect of different messages on the willingness to actively participate in resolving ethical issues.

Study Findings

Thøgersen (2007) Government communication aimed at promoting a more sustainable lifestyle should not be overly pressing.

Bray et al. (2011) Participants seemed most receptive to changes in their purchasing when a particular news story forced them to think about an ethical issue or when they were personally affected.

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Bray et al. (2011); Herr et al.

(1991)

Participants react more strongly to negative news stories; positive information generates less interest and less likely to affect purchase decisions

Vitell, Singhapakdi & Thomas (2001)

Consumers rely more on ethical norms (deontology) than on consequences (teleology) in ethical decision making.

Hegarty and Sims (1978, 1979); Singhapakdi & Vitell (1991)

Individuals with an external locus of control tend to believe that ethical dilemmas are beyond their control whereas those with an internal locus of control are more likely to make ethical decisions in defiance of conflicting social or situational pressures

Barnett et al. (2005) Consumer-oriented activism presents a model of responsibility that connects individual and household consumption to broader

mobilisations. A narrow sense of individualised ethical responsibility is transformed into a practice of collective, political responsibility.

Dogan et al. (2014) Providing feedback to consumers that may not be aware of the consequences of their behaviour could promote behaviour changes and reduce energy consumption. Environmental saving messages are considered more worthwhile in changing people’s behaviour than financial savings messages.

Bolderdijk et al. (2011) Economic appeals elicited less compliance than environmental and control appeals. Biospheric appeals have a bigger emotional effect on people than an economic appeal.

Table 1 | Summary of literature

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3. Theoretical framework

3.1 Conceptual model

Figure 1 shows the conceptual model of this research. This model is the result of a gap in the literature of the effects of different messages or motives on the active participation of consumers in promoting ethical consumption. We know from the existing literature that ecological and economic or self-interest messages have different effects on ethical consumption (Bolderdijk et al., 2011;

Dogan et al., 2014), where researchers have found that ecological motives are more effective in changing consumption behaviour but policy makers and marketers still believe that appealing to monetary gain is the most effective way to encourage sustainable actions (Dogan et al., 2014).

However, Dogan et al. (2014) and Bolderdijk et al. (2011) focused on ethical consumption and not specifically on the active participation of consumers, so we can only assume the effects of those messages on the active participation of consumers.

Figure 1 | Conceptual model

The different appeals of the messages used in this research are similar to those used by Bolderdijk et al. (2011), with one message focusing on the financial benefit, which appeals to the self-interest of people and one message focusing on a communal interest appeal to contrast the self-interest appeal. Besides these two messages we also wanted to research the effects of a social appeal in the form of a generational message, which appeals to the well-being of future generations. The effects of this type of appeal on either ethical consumption or the active participation of consumers are largely unknown, however the importance of inter-generational equity and thus preserving the

Active participation

of consumers

Generational interest messages Ecological

interest messages Self-interest

messages

Locus of control

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earth’s resources for future generations is quite clear (Munda, 1997; Pan & Kao, 2008; Ehrlich, 2009).

Locus of control is added as a moderator with the purpose to find out if a different perception on the impact of one’s individual actions changes the strength of the effects that the three messages have on the active participation of consumers. The article of Trevino and Youngblood (1990) showed us that locus of control has a strong effect on ethical decision making, and we expect that it will also change the effect of the different messages on the willingness to actively participate, since actively participating can also be seen as an ethical decision in the sense that it promotes the ethical consequences of our behaviour. Findings from the research of Singhapakdi & Vitell (1991) are that individuals with an external locus of control tend to believe that ethical dilemmas are beyond their control whereas those with an internal locus of control tend to believe that their actions do have an effect on ethical dilemmas and are therefore more likely to make ethical decisions in defiance of conflicting social or situational pressures (Hegarty & Sims, 1978; 1979; Singhapakdi & Vitell, 1991).

Because individuals believe that their actions have an effect on ethical dilemmas, we expect that individuals with an internal locus of control will have a bigger effect on the relation between messages and willingness to actively participate.

3.2 Hypotheses

3.2.1 Self-interest, ecological interest, and generational interest messages

Vermeir & Verbeke (2005) state that everyday consumption practices are still heavily driven by convenience, habit, value for money, personal health concerns. However, research has showed that many people feel an obligation to act in a pro-environmental way and consumers seem more likely to put environmental needs before personal needs, which is shown by the willingness to separate waste, conserve energy and buying eco-labelled products (Kaiser, 2006).

The research of Bolderdijk et al. (2011) also showed that pro-environmental messages have a bigger emotional effect on people and elicit more compliance than economic or self-interest appeals.

Active participation requires that consumers think about their duties as a consumer-citizen, which goes beyond their personal needs. As discussed before, active participation means participating in formal practices such as campaigns, debates, or boycotting. A consumer willing to actively

participate has to go beyond his or her own individual duties to help preserve the environment for all people. Dogan et al. (2014) shows that people consider environmental saving motives more worthwhile for people’s effort than financial savings motives. In other words, people are more willing to increase their effort when they are confronted with an environmental saving motive than when they are confronted with a financial savings motive. Therefore, we expect that ecological

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messages that focus on the appeal of preserving the environment are more effective in encouraging consumers to actively participate than self-interest messages.

Generational messages appeal to the well-being of future generations. Sustainability has an element of not harming the future, thus intergenerational equity (Goodland & Daly, 1996). People are recognizing that present patterns of resource consumption and pollution will lead to biophysical impossibilities and the deterioration of global life-support systems in the not-too-distant future (Goodland & Daly, 1996). The economic literature on sustainability generally presumes that people care about future generations (Scott, 1999) and there is the believe that our descendants should have as much choice as we have (Goodland & Daly, 1996). The growing concern with sustainable development reflects a basic belief that the interests of future generations should receive the same kind of attention that those in the present generation get (Anand & Sen, 2000). Anand & Sen (2000) believe that people should think about the consequences of their lifestyles of overusing resources which might leave the future generations unable to enjoy the same opportunities as we do now.

They argue that people should take interest in the rights of future generations. This issue is emerging as one of the central challenges faced by the modern world (Pronk & Haq, 1992; Speth, 1992;

Brundtland, 1993) and was also discussed in the environmental conference (UNCED) in Rio 1992.

Since the concern for intergenerational equity is growing, we expect that people appeal to a message that makes them aware of the generational problems and increase their willingness to actively participate. However, we expect this effect to be smaller compared to the effect ecological interest messages, since an ecological motive has already been proven to have a strong effect on ethical consumption. We also expect this effect to be weaker than self-interest message because we know so little about the effects of generational messages on ethical consumption and consumer’s opinions about intergenerational equity.

H1: Ecological interest messages lead to the highest active participation of consumers compared to self-interest messages and generational messages.

H2: Generational interest messages lead to the lowest active participation of consumers compared to self-interest messages and ecological messages.

3.2.2 Locus of control

The article of Trevino and Youngblood (1990) found that locus of control has a strong effect on ethical decision making. With this in mind, we expect that individuals with an internal LOC who believe that their actions do have an effect are more likely to actively participate than someone who does not believe their actions can have an impact, those with an external LOC. Kalamas et al. (2014)

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shares this chain of thought: internals should be motivated to undertake pro-environmental behaviour because they believe that their behaviour can bring about a desirable outcome; whereas externals should be little motivated to engage in the same, because they feel they lack mastery over the situation; thus sensing disconnection between their behaviour and a preferred end result.

To change this attitude, people need to experience a success they can clearly match with their own effort (Nagel, 2005). Being only informed about environmental issues, they often say something like,

‘OK, but what can I do to help...someone else should solve the problem’. Such kind of ‘awareness based’ programmes often deepen their frustration and apathy (Nagel, 2005). This indicates that externals faced with an ecological or generational message that informs them about an

environmental issue, will be less receptive to these messages and the messages will be less likely in creating a pro-environmental behaviour than it would for internals. It also shows that LOC has an effect on how messages and awareness programmes are perceived, leading to believe LOC has a moderating effect on the relation between messages and pro-environmental behaviour/intention.

H3a: When a person has an internal locus of control, ecological messages will have a bigger effect on willingness to actively participate in promoting the food waste issue than a person with an external locus of control.

H3b: When a person has an internal locus of control, generational messages will have a bigger effect on willingness to actively participate in promoting the food waste issue than a person with an external locus of control.

4. Research design

4.1. Research method

For this research we have set up an online survey with three scenarios, one scenario for each of the three messages: self-interest message, ecological message and generational message. The questions do not differ between the three scenarios, so the only difference between the scenarios is the message shown. The survey items can be found in Appendix A.

4.1.1. Locus of Control items

To determine if a respondent has an internal or external Locus of Control, a set of 29-forced choice, including 6 filler items, was constructed. This set is based on the scale of Rotter (1966), which he calls the I-E scale (internal – external scale). For this set the item analysis and factor analysis show reasonably high internal consistency for an additive scale. Test-retest reliability is satisfactory, and the scale correlates satisfactorily with other methods of assessing the same variable such as questionnaire, Likert scale, interview assessments, and ratings from a story-completion technique

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(Rotter, 1966). This test measures Locus of Control over a number of specific or different situations.

The filler items are questions 1, 8, 14, 19, 24, 27 and these items are based on items which appeared to be most successful in the article of Phares (1957), which was the first attempt to measure

individual differences in a generalized expectancy or belief in external control as a psychological variable. The 6 filler items are intended to make respondents somewhat more ambiguous to the purpose of the test.

Each item consists of a pair of alternatives, A or B. Respondents have to select one statement they believe is more strongly true of each pair. Respondents were made clear that there are no right or wrong answers. Respondents had to make sure to pick one for every choice, and also had to try to not be influenced by previous choices.

4.1.2. Messages

After the Locus of Control items, one of the three messages are shown. The message was conveyed in the form of text and an image. We used the same image for every scenario, again to ensure that the only difference between the scenarios is the message shown.

For all the messages we used the same opening line, which we based on reports of the Dutch government about a food waste research they did in 2013

(https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/voeding/documenten/brochures/2014/01/29/feiten- en-cijfers-verspilling-voedsel-consumenten-in-2013) and follow this up by a line that conveys the appeal of the message.

The first message is an ecological message that focuses on the impact of food waste on the

environment. The message is: Did you know that on average the Dutch consumer wastes around 64 kilograms of food per year and 35 kilograms (54%) of that is avoidable? By reducing food waste, we reduce the strain that the manufacturing and disposal of food waste has on the environment.

The second message is a self-interest message, which focuses on the financial benefits of reducing food waste. We used information about the savings from the same report of the Dutch government from 2013. The message is: Did you know that on average the Dutch consumer wastes around 64 kilograms of food per year and 35 kilograms (54%) of that is avoidable? By reducing your food waste, you can save up to 150 euros per person in your household per year.

The third message is a generational message, which focuses on preserving the earth’s resources for future generations. To strengthen this appeal, we used a citation from Anand & Sen (2000) about the choices and opportunities for future generations. The message is: Did you know that on average

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avoidable? By reducing food waste, we ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the same choices and opportunities in resources as we do.

4.1.3. Pro-environmental behavioural intention

After the message we want to measure the pro-environmental behavioural intention of the respondents to find out how likely they are to act pro-environmentally and compare the effects across the three scenarios. The items in this set are based on the research of Gärling et al. (2003), in which the authors argue that ascribed responsibility is causally related to personal norm and that personal norm is causally related to pro-environmental behavioural intention. Respondents are asked to rate 9 statements, three statements for each of the constructs described in Garling et al.

(2003), on a Likert-scale ranging from 1= strongly disagree to 9 = strongly agree. Statements 1 to 3 measure the ascribed responsibility, statements 4 to 6 measure the personal norm and statements 7 to 9 measure the pro-environmental behavioural intention. For this research we are mainly

interested in the last three statements that determine the pro-environmental behavioural intention of the respondents.

Following this set of items on PBI, we introduce the respondent to a non-existent community: There is a community of consumers taking action in their own hands to raise public awareness of ethical consumption, which means thinking about the consequences of one’s purchases on ethical issues such as food waste. This community launches social media campaigns, takes political action, provides the necessary information to concerned consumers, and promotes any action that increases the concern and awareness for this issue. This is followed by a single yes or no question: ‘Are you willing to join a community that promotes ethical consumption?’ with the goal to find out if the respondent is willing to actively participate in a community or campaign and if there is a difference in effect between the three messages.

After finalizing the survey, the respondents were made aware that the community is not real and their answer on this question was only for research purposes.

4.1.4. Covariate: biospheric orientation

A variable that might predict the outcomes of the messages on the willingness to actively participate is the biospheric orientation variable. A respondent with a biospheric orientation is already aware of the consequences of for example food waste on the environment and is therefore more likely to rate a higher score to pro-environmental behavioural intention items and also to our main question: ‘Are you willing to join a community that promotes ethical consumption’ regardless of which message was shown in the survey.

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To determine the value orientation of respondents, respondents had to rate the importance of 12 value items as a guiding principle in their lives. This set is based on research of de Groot & Steg (2007; 2008). According to this research, individuals can have either an egoistic value orientation, altruistic value orientation or a biospheric orientation. Respondents have to rate 12 values, 4 for each orientation, on a 9-point scale ranging from -1 = opposed to my values, 0 = not important, to 7

= extremely important. Respondents were encouraged to not rate to many values as extremely important to make sure they belong more to one orientation than another.

4.2. Plan of analysis

For the analysis of the effects of the independent variables on the dependent variable ‘active participation’ we first perform Chi-square tests to provide descriptive information about the relations between these variables. After that, logistic regression analyses are performed, since the dependent variable ‘active participation’ is a binary variable from the question ‘are you willing to join a community’(yes/no).

We also measured ‘pro-environmental behavioural intention’, which includes active participation items. This variable will be analysed as a dependent variable with the same independent variables as the ‘active participation’ variable. The tests that are used to measure this are multiple linear

regression analyses.

5. Results

5.1 Descriptive statistics

The sample size of this research consisted of 98 respondents, mostly students, friends, family members and colleagues of the researcher. 31 of the respondents were confronted with an ecological message (31.6%), 30 with a self-interest message (30.6%) and 37 with a generational message (37.8%). From the 98 respondents, 24 (24.5%) were willing to actively participate and join a community that promotes ethical consumption and 74 (75.5%) were not willing to join and

answered no to the question ‘Are you willing to join a community that promotes ethical

consumption?’. For further analyses, we grouped the respondents by the message they were shown.

Table 2 shows the categorization of the respondents.

Frequency Percentage

Group 1: Ecological message 31 31.6%

Group 2: Self-interest message 30 30.6%

Group 3: Generational message 37 37.8%

Total 98 100%

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Table 2 | Categorization of respondents

Table 3 - 5 show the descriptive statistics for the variables Pro-environmental behaviour (PBI), Locus of Control (LOC) and Orientation.

Mean Standard Error

PBI 4.94 .15

Table 3 | Descriptive statistics Pro-environmental behavior

* LOC is the number of external choices of which the maximum is 23 (29 items including 6 filler items).

Mean Standard Error

LOC 11.55 .48

Table 4 | Descriptive statistics Locus of Control

Mean Standard Error

Egoistic Value Orientation

4.75 .13

Altruistic Value Orientation

6.75 .13

Biospheric Value Orientation

6.67 .12

Table 5 | Descriptive statistics egoistic, altruistic and biospheric orientations

5.2. Reliability

As we mentioned before, we measured the variable pro-environmental behavioural intention with three items. To test if the three PBI items are reliable enough to combine into a single variable ‘Pro- environmental behavioural intention’, we first checked the correlation between the three PBI items.

Table 6 shows the mean and standard deviation for each of the PBI items. The standard deviation of all three items is relatively high, meaning that there are great variations from the mean in the data.

Mean Standard Deviation

PBI item 1: contribute money 4.82 1.89

PBI item 2: sign petition 6.29 1.96

PBI item 3: participate in demonstration 3.72 1.92

Table 6 | Mean and standard deviation of PBI items

PBI 1 & PBI 2 PBI 1 & PBI 3 PBI 2 & PBI 3

Correlation .534 .439 .353

Significance .000 .000 .000

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The correlation analysis shows that all the three PBI items correlate significantly (see table 7). For example, the higher the intention is to contribute money to an organization that prevents food waste, the higher the intention is to sign a petition for tougher food laws.

The final test to determine if the items can be combined into a single variable PBI is to measure the Cronbach’s alpha. The Cronbach’s Alpha of the new variable is .703, which is high enough to continue with the combined variable instead of the three separate PBI items.

5.3. Effects on active participation

To find out the effect of the 3 different messages on the question ‘Are you willing to join a

community that promotes ethical consumption’, we did a Chi-square test from which the results can be found in table 8. We can see that 30% of the respondents that were faced with a self-interest message were willing to join the community, 24.3% of the respondents faced with a generational message, and only 19.4% of the respondents that faced an ecological message were willing to join.

So, the results indicate that of the three messages, self-interest messages lead to the highest active participation of consumers, however the test shows that these results are not significant, Chi-square

= .935 and p = 0.627.

Are you willing to join a community that promotes ethical consumption?

Yes No

Ecological message group 6 (19.4%) 25 (80.6%)

Self-interest message group 9 (30%) 21 (70%)

Generational message group 9 (24.3%) 28 (75.7%)

Total 24 (24.5%) 74 (75.5%)

Table 8 | Chi-square test of messages and willingness to actively participate

A logistic regression was performed to analyse the effects of messages, locus of control and value orientation on the binary dependent variable willingness of respondents to join the community.

The Nagelkerke R Square is .253 meaning that 25.3% of the variance is explained by these variables.

The null model with only the constant predicted 75.5% correctly, however the full model predicted the cases slightly better 81.6%. Table 10 shows the model including the interaction effect of

messages and LOC. The model including the interaction effect has a Nagelkerke R square of .263, so including the interaction effect in the model slightly increases the amount of variance explained to 26.3%. The model including the interaction effect also slightly increases the accuracy of the predictions, 82.7% of the predictions are correct. Table 9 and 10 show the coefficients of the variables we used in the regression and the statistical significance of these variables. The constant is

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the average willingness to actively participate for the respondents faced with a self-interest message.

Variable Beta Significance

Constant 1.659 .373

Ecological message .693 .328

Generational message .458 .462

LoC -.011 .856

Egoistic value orientation .710 .006 Altruistic value

orientation

1.480 .030

Biospheric value orientation

-2.077 .007

Table 9 | Results of binary logistic regression of messages on active participation without interaction

Variable Beta Significance

Constant 2.170 .331

Ecological message .865 .650

Generational message -.748 .682

LoC -.037 .697

Egoistic value orientation .709 .007 Altruistic value

orientation

1.550 .028

Biospheric value orientation

-2.171 .007

Interaction LOC and Ecological message

-.023 .879

Interaction LOC and generational message

.094 .480

Table 10 | Results of binary logistic regression of messages on active participation with interaction

Only the value orientation variables have a significant impact on the willingness to actively

participate variable. Generational messages do have the lowest effect on active participation, which confirms H2, however, since none of the messages have a significant effect on active participation, it still means that H1 and H2 are not supported. Adding the interaction effect between LOC and the messages (LOC x Messages) increases the prediction of the full model slightly, 82.7% as compared to

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the 81.6% of the model without the interaction effect. However, the interaction effect itself is not significant (p = .413). Since the effects of LOC and the interaction effect of LOC with the messages on the dependent variable ‘active participation’ are not significant, H3a and H3b are also not supported by the results of this research.

5.4. Effects on pro-environmental behavioural intention

To test the effect of messages on pro-environmental behavioural intention we did a one-way ANOVA test. Respondents faced with a self-interest message have the highest scores on pro-environmental behavioural intention items (M = 5.1), those faced with an ecological message score a little lower (M

= 4.97) and those faced with a generational message have the lowest mean score (M = 4.79).

Surprisingly, self-interest messages lead to higher average PBI scores than the other 2 appeals, which contradicts the results of Bolderdijk et al. (2011). However, the mean PBI scores of self-interest messages were not significantly higher, F = .339 and p = .731.

To analyse the effect of the independent variables and the moderator locus of control on PBI, a linear regression was performed. The model excluding the interaction effect of the messages with LOC (see table 11) has an adjusted R² value of .452, which means that 45.2% of the variance is explained by these variables. The model including the interaction effect of the messages (see table 12) with LOC has an adjusted R² value of .443, meaning 44.3% of the variance is explained. So, including the interaction effect between the messages and LOC lowers the predictive power of the model. The ANOVA analysis shows us that the overall model is significant (p = .000) for each of the 2 models. Table 11 and 12 display the coefficients of the variables we used and the significance of these variables on pro-environmental behavioural intention. The constant is the average PBI for the respondents that were faced with a self-interest message.

Variable Beta Significance

Constant 1.914 .016

Ecological message .097 .742

Generational message -.377 .177

LoC .032 .215

Egoistic value orientation -.393 .000

Altruistic value orientation -1.125 .000 Biospheric value orientation 1.834 .000

Table 11 | Results of linear regression of messages on PBI without interaction effect

Variable Beta Significance

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Constant 1.785 .049

Ecological message .539 .483

Generational message -.422 .580

LoC .044 .307

Egoistic value orientation -.377 .000

Altruistic value orientation -1.095 .000 Biospheric value orientation 1.789 .000 Interaction LOC and

Ecological message

-.041 .521

Interaction LOC and Generational message

.004 .946

Table 12 | Results of linear regression of messages on PBI with interaction effect

Against all expectations, LOC has a very small effect on PBI, an increase of 1 in LOC, so one more external choice in the item set, will only increase pro-environmental behaviour by .032. Also, the effects of the different messages on PBI is insignificant. Only the three control variables, egoistic value orientation, altruistic value orientation and biospheric value orientation have a significant effect on PBI. From these three value orientations, biospheric has the biggest effect on pro- environmental behaviour (beta = 1.797), meaning that a 1-point increase on biospheric value orientation increases the PBI score by 1.789. The interaction effect of LOC and the 3 messages was also measured but results show that this has a very small and insignificant effect on PBI (p = .521 and p = .946).

6. Conclusions and recommendations

This research shows that the effect of different messages does not seem very important in determining the willingness of consumers to actively participate in promoting ethical issues.

Surprisingly, the results of this research do not support the findings of the research of Bolderdijk et al. (2011) that pro-environmental messages elicit more compliance than economic or self-interest appeals. In contrast and against expectations, the respondents that participated in this research that were faced with a self-interest message showed a higher average pro-environmental behavioural intention than those faced with an environmental or a generational message, this effect was not significant but it is still a surprising result. Future researchers could go more in depth in the effects of self-interest appeals on pro-environmental behavioural intention, which is interesting since the article of Evans et al. (2012) highlights the negative side effects from using self-interest appeals to promote pro-environmental behaviour. When people focus on the selfish reasons for pro-

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environmental behaviour in one domain (e.g. car sharing), they are less inclined to behave pro- environmentally in other domains (e.g. recycling). More research is needed on the use of self- interest appeals for promoting pro-environmental behaviour and intention and find out if the side effects mentioned by Evans et al. (2012) are true.

Another surprising result of this research is the small effect locus of control has on both active participation and pro-environmental behavioural intention. This contradicts previous findings that people with an internal locus of control are more likely to act ethical (Singhapakdi & Vitell, 1991;

Hegarty and Sims 1978; 1979). No support was found for the expectation that people with an internal locus of control, those that believe their actions have an impact, would be more willing to actively participate.

In this research three value orientations were used as control variables: egoistic value orientation, altruistic value orientation and biospheric value orientation. These variables have a significant effect on the main independent variable ‘Willingness to actively participate’. People with a biospheric value orientation as compared to an egoistic or altruistic value orientation leads to a significantly higher pro-environmental behavioural intention and respondents with a biospheric value orientation are more likely actively participate in the form of contributing money to an organization that

prevents food waste, signing a petition in support of tougher food waste laws, and participating in a demonstration against companies that waste a lot of food. Governments can use this information to convey messages that convince consumers to share the ecological burden of food waste. Another example for a practical implication is to teach the importance of biospheric values in schools, so future generations will have a higher pro-environmental behavioural intention and consume more ethically.

Limitations of this research are the scope of this research, in particular the focus on one specific ethical issue, food waste, which limits the generalizability. Another limitation was the research method, in hindsight the methods that were used were unable to answer the research question:

Which messages are most effective in encouraging consumers to actively participate in promoting the ethical issue of food waste. A possible reason for this could be that the research design failed in conveying the message in a way that it makes an impact on the respondent. Another reason for the lack of significant differences in the data between the messages could be the sample size, 98 respondents participated in this research, which is a relatively small sample.

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Assadourian, E. (2010). Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability. Journal of Macromarketing, 30(2): 186-191.

Barnett, C., Cloke, P., Clarke, N. and Malpass, A. (2005). Consuming ethics: articulating the subjects and spaces of ethical consumption. Antipode 37(1): 23-45.

Bolderdijk, J.W., Steg, L, Geller, E.S., Lehman, P.K., and Postmes, T. (2013). Comparing the effectiveness of monetary versus moral motives in environmental campaigning. Nature Climate Change, 3(4): 413-416.

Bray, J., Johns, N., and Kilburn, D. (2011). An Exploratory Study into the Factors Impeding Ethical Consumption. Journal of Business Ethics 98(4): 597-608.

Brundtland, G. H. (1993). Population, environment and development. The Rafael M. Salas Memorial Lecture (September 28). United Nations Population Fund, New York.

Carrigan, M. and Attaila, A. (2001). The Myth of the Ethical Consumer - Do Ethics Matter in Purchase Behaviour? Journal of Consumer Marketing, 18(7): 560-577.

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237-288). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

de Groot, J.I. & Steg, L. (2007). Value orientations and environmental beliefs in five countries – validity of an instrument to measure egoistic, altruistic and biospheric value. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 38(3): 318-332.

de Groot, J.I. & Steg, L. (2008). Value orientations to explain beliefs related to environmental significant behaviour – how to measure egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric value orientations.

Environment and behaviour, 40(3): 330-354.

Dogan, E., Bolderdijk, J.W. and Steg, L. (2014). Making small numbers count: environmental and financial feedback in promoting eco-driving behaviours. Economics and Behavioural Sciences, 37(3): 413-422

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