Follow the Trend?

Follow the Trend?

Exploring the Role of Descriptive Normative Messages and Goal Framing on

Intentions to Reduce Meat Consumption

Introduction

Why care about meat consumption?

• Behaviour that minimizes the harm on the environment or even benefits it Pro-environmental

behaviour

Literature Review

• Effective way to promote pro-environmental behaviours

• “Rules and standards understood by members of a group that guide behaviour without the force of laws” • Descriptive social norm: behaviour shown by most group members

• Problem: descriptive norm is in favour of the undesirable behaviour

→ Static descriptive normative messages: current prevalence of a behaviour → Dynamic descriptive normative messages: + change of a norm over time

• Research on dynamic descriptive normative messages solely referred to what an increasing minority is doing

RQ: “How do static compared to dynamic descriptive normative messages influence consumers intentions towards eating less meat when either framed as a loss or as a gain?”

H1: A dynamic descriptive normative message will be more effective in changing intentions to reduce meat consumption compared to a static descriptive normative message.

Social norm theory (Cialdini, Goldstein & Reno 1990)

Literature Review

• Impact of perceived gains and losses of performing a certain behaviour on decision-making

• Gain: benefits of engaging in the behaviour • Loss: costs of not engaging in the behaviour

• Goal framing of static vs. dynamic descriptive normative messages

H2: Framing a dynamic compared to a descriptive normative message as a gain or a loss will have different effects on changing intentions to reduce meat consumption

H2a: A static descriptive normative message will be equally effective in changing one’s intentions to reduce meat consumption whether framed as a loss or a gain.

• Perceived psychological distance of the self to an event (proximal or distant) influences one’s behaviours towards it

• Construal matching account of CLT: message elements more effective when activating the same level of psychological distance

→ Loss frames activate a lower level construal → Dynamic descriptive normative messages

activate a lower level construal

H2b: A loss-framed dynamic descriptive normative message will be more effective in changing one’s intentions to reduce meat consumption than framing the same dynamic descriptive normative message as a gain.

Goal framing theory (Kahneman & Tversky 1971) Construal Level Theory (Trope, Liberman & Waksla_{k 2007)}

Methodology

1

2

3

Recent research has shown that 30% of people living in the Ne therlands make an effort to limit their meat consumption. This means that 3 out of 10 people living in the Netherlands eat les

s meat than they otherwise would.

Recent research has shown that 70% of people li ving in the Netherlands make no effort to limit thei r meat consumption. This means that 7 out of 10 people living in the Netherlands eat as much mea

t as they usually have done.

Dynamic

Recent research has shown that 30% of people living in the Ne therland make an effort to limit their meat consumption. This m eans that 3 out of 10 people living in the Netherlands eat less meat than they otherwise would. This has increased from 20%

or 2 out of 10 people five years ago.

Recent research has shown that 70% of people li ving in the Netherlands make no effort to limit thei r meat consumption. This means that 7 out of 10 people living in the Netherlands eat as much mea t as they usually have done. This has decreased f rom 80% or 8 out of 10 people five years ago.

Control: no message presented

Manipulation of social norm and goal framing (message presented):

5 conditions

Manipulation checks Measurement of intentions to reduce meat consumption: three items on a 7-point Likert scale

Results

• H1: p < .01 à supported

• H2: p = .12 à not supported, however marginally significant • H2a: à supported

• H2b: à not supported, but non-significant trend in predicted direction

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Static Dynamic In te nti on s to re du ce me at co nsu mp tio n

Descriptive normative message

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Static Dynamic In te nti on s to re du ce me at co nsu mp tio n

Descriptive normative message

Gain Loss Main effect of static versus dynamic Descriptive normative message on

Intentions to reduce meat consumption

Interaction effect of Descriptive normative message and Goal Framing on Intentions to reduce meat consumption

Discussion

• Dynamic descriptive normative message are more effective in promoting minority behaviours such as meat consumption than static descriptive normative messages

→ Complement findings of Sparkman & Walton (2017) as well as Jaeger et al. (2019)

• Static descriptive normative messages promoting minority behaviours are equally effective whether framed as a loss or a gain àIn line with Cialdini, Reno and Kallgren (1990): conformity to static descriptive norms depends on popularity of the

behaviour

• Dynamic descriptive normative messages framed as a loss show a trend of being more effective in promoting minority behaviours

à Theoretically supported by construal matching account of CLT (Zwickle and Wilson 2014) • Limitations:

• Controlling for covariates e.g. frequency of meat consumption • Majority behaviours?

Thank you for your

attention!

References:

Cialdini, Robert B , Raymond R Reno, and Carl A Kallgren (1990), “A focus theory of normative c onduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places,” Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 58 (6), 1015–26.

Jaeger, Christine M., Megan M. Ringel, Ryan P. Jacobson, Chad R. Mortensen, Rebecca Neel, a nd Robert B. Cialdini (2019), “Trending Norms: A Lever for Encouraging Behaviors Performed by t

he Minority,” Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10 (2).

Sparkman, Gregg and Gregory M. Walton (2017), “Dynamic Norms Promote Sustainable Behavio r, Even if It Is Counternormative,” Psychological Science, 28 (11), 1663–74.

Trope, Yaacov, Nira Liberman, and Cheryl Wakslak (2007), “Construal Levels and Psychological Distance: Effects on Representation, Prediction, Evaluation, and Behavior,”

Journal of Consumer Psychology, 17 (2), 83–95.

Tversky, Amos and Daniel Kahneman (1981), “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice,” Science, 211 (4481), 453–58.

Zwickle, A and R.S Wilson (2014), “Construing risk: Implications for risk communication,” in Effecti