Master’s Thesis
Using Efficiency instead of
Curtailment to be Seen as
Environmentally Conscious
The Influence of Anticipated Audience on the Likelihood to Display
Two Dimensions of Environmentally-conscious Behaviors
Ramadina Andasha Mahalita
Using Efficiency instead of Curtailment to
be seen as Environmentally Conscious
The Influence of Anticipated Audience on the Likelihood to Display Two
Dimensions of Environmentally-conscious Behaviors
Author
R. A. Mahalita r.a.mahalita@student.rug.nl Planetenlaan 171 9742HG Groningen The Netherlands +31 (0) 6 46 69 52 401
stSupervisor
dr. J. W. Bolderdijk j.w.bolderdijk@rug.nl Nettelsbosje 2 9747AE Groningen The Netherlands +31 (0) 50 363 908 62
ndSupervisor
dr. M. C. Leliveld m.c.leliveld@rug.nl Nettelsbosje 2 9747AE Groningen The Netherlands +31 (0) 50 363 322 6Master’s Thesis
Completion Date
13.01.2017
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
Preface
Nowadays, the topic of sustainable consumption becomes more and more popular among people. Pro-environmental behavior somehow enables one’s image and status enhancement due to doing something for the greater good. That is why it is interesting for me to see whether these people become environmentally conscious for the sake of enhancing their own status or actually for the sake of the environment. If people are motivated to be pro-environmental because they view these behaviors are favorable among society, I’m keen to know whether they would only choose the specific behaviors that can enhance their social status.
This master thesis was written during the third semester of my Master study to obtain a degree in Marketing Management at the University of Groningen. It was based upon several academic articles and conclusions drawn from the field research in the form of lab experiment. I certainly hope that this study could make a modest contribution to the achievement of the overall goal of promoting sustainable consumer behavior.
Abstract
Past research papers have proposed that there are two dimensions of pro-environmental behaviors that may differ in its perceived socio-economic status. Efficiency behavior entails replacing a previously non-environmentally friendly product or activity with energy efficient substitutions. Curtailment, on the other hand, entails reducing consumption of products or energy overall. People tend to associate efficiency with higher socio-economic status than that with curtailment, because it requires purchasing product substitutions at a higher cost which implies consumers’ socio-economic standings. To the contrary, curtailment activities are associated with lower socio-economic status, because it instead requires reducing overall consumption which implies consumers’ inability to maintain financial costs. This difference in perceived status associated with these behaviors might trigger consumers to display or hide their environmentally conscious efforts especially when signaling effect is evident. In public settings, relative to private settings, consumers will be motivated to show their efficiency behaviors. This could also mean that in public, people will instead be discouraged to display their curtailment efforts.
A lab experiment with 230 participants was conducted to determine whether participants would perform efficiency or curtailment activities when situated in public and private settings. However, contrary to previous predictions, this study instead significantly showed that participants were inclined to perform curtailment behaviors rather than efficiency behaviors, despite the finding that respondents were also associating curtailment behaviors with lower socio-economic status. Eventually, this study also did not yield sound statistical evidence that the level of publicness contributes to the strength of the relationship between the types of environmentally-friendly behaviors and the likelihood of performing those behaviors. Nevertheless, in public settings, results showed that participants were more inclined to overstate said behaviors even though were not statistically significant.
Keywords: sustainable consumption, environmentally conscious behaviors, efficiency, curtailment,
Table of Contents
Preface ... 2 Abstract ... 3 Table of Contents ... 4 Introduction ... 5 Theoretical Foundation ... 6Two Dimensions of Environmentally-conscious Behaviors ... 6
Status Associated with Environmentally-conscious Behaviors ... 7
Coping with Anticipated Audience when Performing Environmentally-conscious Behaviors ... 9
Conceptual Model ... 10
Methodology ... 11
Measurement and Manipulation of Variables... 11
Measurement of Dependent Variable: Likelihood to Display Behavior ... 11
Manipulation of Independent Variable: Types of Environmentally-conscious Behaviors ... 12
Manipulation of Moderator: Publicness ... 13
Manipulation Check ... 14 Experimental Procedure ... 15 Lab Setting ... 15 Recruitment of Participants ... 15 Results ... 16 Description of Participants ... 16 Manipulation Check ... 16
Anticipated Signaling Behaviors in Public vs. Private ... 17
Efficiency vs. Curtailment Behaviors ... 18
Additional Moderated Mediation Analysis ... 20
General Discussion ... 20
Limitations and Future Research Directions ... 22
Managerial and Societal Implications ... 23
Conclusion ... 24
References ... 25
Introduction
Publilius Syrus (100 B.C.) once said that “A good reputation is more valuable than money”. Thousands of years later, plenty of studies have also mentioned that well-reputable and high status individuals are believed to be evaluated more favorably than others (Foschi, 1992), deferred to them more (Wagner et al., 1986), given more chances to speak and act (Cohen, 1994), and allocated with more resources (Berger et al., 1985). Reputational motivation has been one of the core drivers of how individuals behave and how they signal their behaviors to others, which then shape of consumer patterns (Brooks & Wilson, 2015). According to Godoy et al. (2007), individuals can use consumption to display wealth and signal potential earnings, which are often related with one’s status.
In terms of environmental movements, status associated with specific acts of sustainable consumption can affect how those behaviors are accepted and spread. Past research has demonstrated that pro-environmental behaviors are perceived as low status which explains why those behaviors are not entirely widespread (Welte & Anastasio, 2010). However, Brooks and Wilson (2015) showed that as awareness of environmental problems increases, the norms about appropriate behaviors regarding sustainable consumption have changed along with symbolic meaning associated with them. Griskevicius et al. (2010) then implied that socio-economic status motivations can now be used as an appropriate strategy for promoting those sustainable behaviors.
Even though engaging in conservation behaviors can build a prosocial reputation (Semmann et al., 2005; Wedekind & Braithwaite, 2002), Brooks & Wilson (2015) argued that not all pro-environmental behaviors are appropriate to maintain or enhance one’s status. According to research by Karlin et al. (2014), there are two dimensions of that differ in characteristics, namely efficiency behaviors and curtailment behaviors. The differences in characteristics between these behaviors have created a perception that one type of environmentally-conscious behavior is more appropriate to maintain one’s status standings than the other.
shape these perceptions of consumers, they might be less keen to display their curtailment activities, especially in a public setting. The fear of being associated with lower in socio-economic status by other people may trigger individuals to avoid the behavior entirely. This condition might hinder the widespread diffusion of overall energy conservation actions in the long run.
In order to find out whether the possible appearance of an audience is a strong motivation for individuals to perform certain behaviors, I compose this paper to figure out whether the level of publicness
(public vs. private) influence people to display those environmentally-conscious behaviors (curtailment vs. efficiency). This
paper aims to shed more light on the impact of social risks of perceived status related to environmentally-conscious behaviors. This is important, as organizations and marketers can then effectively allocate their marketing actions according to characteristics and perceived status associated with these distinctively-categorized environmentally-conscious behaviors. Many literatures have compared between green and non-green behaviors, and how would consumers be engaged in those activities when they became observable. However, comparing consumers’ behaviors towards activities that are similar in value of environmentally-friendliness yet different in core characteristics are something that still need to be probed further. Therefore, this new insights might be an interesting addition to existing scientific literatures regarding how different levels of publicness can affect the likelihood of different types of environmentally-conscious behaviors being performed.
Theoretical Foundation
Two Dimensions of Environmentally-conscious Behaviors
Before going into a deeper analysis on whether different level of publicness can affect the likelihood of individuals to display environmentally-conscious behaviors, the term definitions of aforementioned behaviors need to be elaborated. The first category, efficiency behavior, is defined by Brooks & Wilson (2015) as “consumption that provides the same goods or service as consumption-intensive behavior,
but with lower environmental impact, which is typically achieved through the purchase of a product that increases efficiency”. The behavior commonly needs a financial outlay but result in no loss of amenities with
star appliances, fuel-efficient and less polluting vehicles) or investing in structural or building changes to the home (e.g., installing double-paned windows, installing solar panels on the roofs, and insulation for the home) (Karlin et al., (2014); Brooks & Wilson, (2015); Jansson et al., (2010)). Furthermore, Karlin et al. (2014) and Black et al. (1985) reported that due no loss of amenity, no real discomfort, and no drastic lifestyle changes to implement these behaviors, efficiency behaviors are viewed as a more attractive choice for many consumers in comparison to curtailment behaviors. However, Jackson (2009) argued that even though technological advances by material improvement and energy efficiency enable these activities, efficiency may be insufficient for reaching long-term sustainability goals. Speth (2012) added that even though this behavior already offers a more energy efficient substitutions, the repeated purchase of amenities that may be required to continue to have those substitutions might result in over consumption in the long run, relative to the overall consumption reduction action for energy conservation.
These consumption-reducing behaviors, on the other hand, or curtailment behaviors as Karlin et al. (2014) labeled it, is defined as behavior that reduces the overall use of goods or service that is typically attained by reshaping behaviors instead of purchasing more efficient product substitutions. Moreover, Brooks & Wilson (2015) reported that curtailment activities typically have low monetary costs, but potentially resulting in substantial non-monetary costs (e.g. time, knowledge, effort, inconvenience). More frequently, curtailment behaviors entail discomfort for the actor performing the behavior (Ritchie and McDougall, 1985). The discomfort and inconvenience might be resulted from the required change of habits that must be repeated to reach the conservation purposes, which might cause curtailment behaviors to be harder to implement (Black et al., 1985; Gardner & Abraham, 2007; Karlin et al. (2014)). To specify, these behaviors mostly focused on behaviors that would reduce resources and energy use, including water and energy conservation (e.g. turning off water faucet or lights, unplugging appliances, or reducing appliances usage), car use reduction, recycling, and responsible waste disposal (Gardner & Stern, 2002; Jansson et al., 2010; Karlin et al. (2014). Brooks & Wilson (2015) further considered curtailment as the more appropriate way to reduce overall material and energy consumption.
Status Associated with Environmentally-conscious Behaviors
Gintis et al. (2001) previously mentioned that prosocial individuals are perceived to be more trustworthy, more desirable as friends, allies, and romantic partners, and more likely to be elected as leaders. Those self-presentational goals and high social status reward from implementing such behavior often becomes a more powerful motivator for environmentally-conscious behaviors than the use of common good appeal (Welte & Anastasio, 2010). However, since the characteristics of the aforementioned pro-environmental behaviors are non-identical, those activities may also be associated with distinct levels of ability to convey the socio-economic status of the behavior actors.
Firstly, having the capacity to signal someone’s capability to incur costs, efficiency behaviors tend to be associated with higher status in comparison with curtailment behaviors (Brooks & Wilson, 2015). This association may be developed from the purchase action efficiency behavior requires to reach its conservation purposes. Additionally, acquisition activity in efficiency consumption to some extent are also determined by higher income, which signals that one can afford to spend money on a product that has slightly more environmental value, yet has greater symbolic socio-economic value than purchasing a common product (Brooks & Wilson, 2015; Gatersleben et al., 2002;). When status motives are activated, the likelihood to choose green products is increased only if the price is higher than that of the non-green products (Griskevicius et al., 2010). Maynard (2007) then illustrated in the example of Prius owners who claimed to have bought the more expensive hybrid vehicle to communicate their environmental consciousness to other people. However, when Prius was sold at premium due to the rise of gasoline price, the sales jumped even sharply. This phenomenon might convey the fact that consumers are more motivated in achieving another self-presentational goal which, according to Sadalla & Krull (1995), aims to communicate their socio-economic status to other people. Further, Sexton & Sexton (2014) also added that being able to afford costly environmental investments might grant one’s wealth and prestige status.
choice, it would mean that the loss of flexibility and the inconvenience commonly resulted from those behaviors which could maintain their socio-economic status will not stand out (Brooks & Wilson, 2015). It appeared so because the motivations of avoiding financial costs or having low income seem to be more striking.
Coping with Anticipated Audience when Performing Environmentally-conscious Behaviors
In addition to the status associated with environmentally-conscious behaviors, previous research by Griskevicius et al. (2007) stated that status motives is one of the key factors in influencing purchase decision, namely to what extent the behavior is public or private. Public purchases, relative to private, are likely to conspicuously signal people’s characteristics to an immediate audience (Griskevicius et al., 2010). That is why status motives are likely to trigger people to become especially sensitive and more conscious to what their behaviors might signal to others when such behavior is observable (Kurzban et al., 2007). Griskevicius et al. (2010) then elaborated that when status motives are activated, people are more inclined to purchase green products over the more luxurious non-green products when shopping activities are occurring in public. Those arguments would lead to a prediction that since efficiency behaviors entail higher costs than curtailment, the likelihood of those behaviors to be signaled in public would then be higher than its counterpart. Meanwhile, for curtailment, since it is considered less powerful in conveying socio-economic status and often result in discomfort and inconvenience for the actor performing the behavior, it is argued by Griskevicius et al. (2010) that those behaviors would have the tendency to be concealed in a public setting. In contrast, curtailment might instead thrive in a more private setting since signaling aspects in private condition would be less salient. Not to mention, people might opt for curtailment in a private setting since it rarely cost money (Ritchie & McDougall, 1985) and leads to an increase in personal savings (Clayton & Myers, 2015). Ariely et al., (2009) argued that the availability of monetary incentive related to environmentally-conscious behavior might flourish when the efforts are made in private.
the behaviors of higher status individuals are more likely to be adopted and spread (Van den Bulte & Stremersch, 2004), I would also suggest that people would be more motivated to perform and show behaviors that would increase their social status standings. Hence, I would specifically predict that they would be inclined to perform efficiency than curtailment because it is more able to signal higher socio-economic status and wealth. These goals might be sufficiently powerful for people to opt for efficiency even though not many people have abundant financial means to do such behaviors.
In regard to aforementioned predictions, I would expect that especially in public setting, relative to private setting, when people are confronted with efficiency and curtailment activities, they would be more likely to display their efficiency behaviors and avoid curtailment. In conclusion, the hypothesis of this study is as follows.
H1:
Publicness has an effect on the likelihood of people to perform environmentally-conscious
behaviors when they are faced with curtailment or efficiency; where especially in Public, people are more
likely to display efficiency than curtailment.
Conceptual Model
Based on the theoretical frameworks and the hypothesis that previously elaborated, the conceptual model for this research would be composed as a starting point to conduct further research (see figure 1).
Figure 1. Conceptual Model
Likelihood to Display Behaviors Types of Environmentally-conscious Behavior Publicness Efficiency vs. Curtailment H1
Independent Variable Dependent Variable Moderator
Apart from the aforementioned results expectations, the goal of this study is mainly to investigate whether there is a statistically significant interaction effect that public or private condition creates which moderates the relationship between different types of environmentally-conscious behaviors that people are being confronted with and the likelihood to perform those behaviors.
Methodology
As this study aims at measuring the nature of cause-and-effect relationship between types of pro-environmental behaviors as causal variables and the likelihood to show those behaviors as the effect to be predicted, a causal research design was used. According to Malhotra (2010), since causal research requires the implementation of independent variable(s) manipulation and dependent variable measurement, lab experimentation was used as suitable method.
In general, the questionnaire flow began from demographic inquiries about participants’ gender, age, nationality, and main source of income. Those set of questions were put at the beginning of the survey to warm up participants with easy, non-threatening questions before getting into the main questionnaire. Further, the elements of variables in the main questionnaire will be described thoroughly in the following subchapters. Additionally, there were two types of attention checks in the survey. The first type of attention check was integrated into independent variable scales and the second type was designed to check participants’ awareness in regards to public or private condition. Also, there was one manipulation check section that was integrated into the main questionnaire which will be mentioned in the upcoming paragraphs. Finally, after all these questions, the survey was concluded with future contact section where respondents were asked whether they would like to be informed about the results of this study and whether they would be willing to be approached for participation in future studies.
Measurement and Manipulation of Variables
Measurement of Dependent Variable: Likelihood to Display Behavior
activities.” Respondents were then instructed to self-evaluate their current behavior towards the
assigned environmental activities by answering this statement, “Please indicate to what extent these
environmentally-conscious activities accurately describe your current behavior.” List of behaviors were presented
below the statement, which participants had to rate to the extent of those activities represent their current behavior on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1= “I never do this” to 7= “I always do this”.
Manipulation of Independent Variable: Types of Environmentally-conscious Behaviors
Using the said measurements, participants filled out how often they engaged in various activities based on two values of categorical independent variable: efficiency or curtailment. Both of the behaviors belong to two separate dimensions of pro-environmental behaviors which are basically a similar means of behaviors with a similar environmental outcomes that could be achieved differently either by behavior change (curtailment) or by purchasing a green product (efficiency).
For the curtailment behaviors, the behaviors included were mostly based on the study by Welte and Anastasio (2010) regarding perceived status of conservation behaviors. These activities are mostly associated with low-income and inconvenience (Welte & Anastasio, 2010), such as “Use old clothes or
rags to clean”, “Growing or raising food for yourself to eat”, “Take shorter showers at home to save water”, “Turn off lights when they are not being used”, “Use home-made cleaning products (detergents or soaps)”, and “Use reusable bags for groceries when shopping”. Additionally, one more attribute were added based on the study by Brooks
and Wilson (2015) about perceived status of consumption-reducing behavior, which was “Repair some
clothing instead of buying new one to make them remain wearable”. All of these items or questions were grouped
into Curtailment activities (α=.624, M=4.04, SD=.94).
To the contrary, some attribute manipulations of efficiency behaviors that were still based on Welte and Anastasio (2010)’s study, have higher ability to indicate high income of the consumers. Specifically, “Use biodegradable, reusable paper towels to clean”, “Purchase organic foods to eat”, “Switch to
energy-efficient light bulbs at home”. The rest the behaviors were manipulated into becoming the opposite of the
curtailment behaviors and were decided based on the characteristics of efficiency behaviors previously mentioned. These activities are, “Install water-efficient showerheads at home to save water”, “Purchase eco-friendly
clothing”, “Use bio or all-natural cleaning products (detergents or soaps)”, and “Purchase biodegradable plastic bags for groceries when shopping”. Behaviors that require financial investments and significantly associated with
high income (Welte & Anastasio, 2010), such as “Purchase fuel-efficient hybrid car”, “Use solar heating system
be relevant to behaviors of most students hence eliminated. All of these questions used were grouped into Efficiency activities (α=.709, M=3.15, SD=1.09).
An additional item was also integrated into both Efficiency and Curtailment behavior questions as the first type of attention check. Among the randomized environmentally-conscious questions, there were one item that was used to ensure the full attention of participants when filling out the survey. This was stated as: “Choose answer two for this statement”. If respondents answered other answers but “2”, these respondents would be filtered out subsequently.
Manipulation of Moderator: Publicness
Participants filled the aforementioned scales measuring their efficiency vs curtailment behaviors under the awareness that their environmental performance would remain private (private condition) or become known to others (public condition). Participants in public condition were informed that their answers as well as those of the other participating students will be compared with each other and be drafted into a ranking. Moreover, the names of the twenty most environmentally-conscious participants will be shared with all other participants in a form of a leaderboard. In other words, while filling out the scale, participants were aware of the fact that their environmentally-friendly performance may become known to other participants. This public setting manipulation was based on the study by Bursztyn and Jensen (2015) where they found out that the increased and decreased performance of students were caused by the application of performance leaderboard in several computer-based high school courses. In contrast, private condition were built by simply adding a sentence after the instructions which stated that participants’ answers will be kept completely private from everyone.
In addition, as previously mentioned in the general description of the questionnaire flow, the second type of attention check question was incorporated into the questionnaire. In this question, participants were asked about the purpose of the participants’ previously-submitted answers. Participants chose whether the answers would be compared with other participants’ answers to determine ranking in a leaderboard or would be kept private. Again, this question was added to ensure that respondents had read the instructions carefully and thoroughly before answering every question in the survey1.
Manipulation Check
In order to test whether the likelihood to display efficiency and curtailment behaviors were motivated by self-presentational reasons and affected by socio-economic status associated with these behaviors, a manipulation check was applied. This manipulation was included to verify whether indeed people see the efficiency version of the similar environmental behaviors to be more effective at communicating socio-economic status. Previous theories that had been used in this current study are related to socio-economic status motivation. Thus, this question applied only one self-motivational goal item that related with status which taken from the study by Sadalla and Krull (1995).
In the question, respondents were instructed, “In the following, you will see a list of behaviors that are
environmentally conscious. Here we would like to know whether you think that those behaviors are effective to communicate a certain self-presentational goal to someone”. Then it followed by a question, “Please indicate to what extent these following activities are effective to show to someone that: You are above average in socioeconomic status2.” Participants then rated both efficiency and curtailment activities to which extent these
activities are effective to maintain the aforementioned goal on 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1= “Extremely ineffective to communicate status” to 7= “Extremely effective to communicate status”.
To conclude, there were two levels of categorical independent variable and categorical moderator variable used in this study, which resulted in four experimental groups. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the groups with an equal distribution (see table 1). The experiment will accordingly designate the situation for the participants that their answers would either (1) be exposed to a possible top 20 ranking in a leaderboard in the public setting when deciding which efficiency behaviors they usually perform (2) or which curtailment behaviors they usually perform; (3) or be concealed from other person(s) in a private setting when deciding their likelihood to perform efficiency behaviors (4) or curtailment behaviors.
Experimental Group Independent Variable Level Moderator Level Group 1 Efficiency Behaviors Public Setting
Group 2 Curtailment Behaviors Public Setting
Group 3 Efficiency Behaviors Private Setting
Group 4 Curtailment Behaviors Private Setting
Table 1. Experimental Groups
Experimental Procedure
Lab Setting
The lab experiment was conducted at FEB Research Lab at Duisenberg Building in Zernike Complex of the University of Groningen. It was carried out for two weeks from the 21th of November to the 2nd of December 2016. Participants were welcomed in the lab by researchers to get themselves
signed in. After that, each participant was placed into one of the eight computer cubicles where they answered surveys from several studies by themselves, which included a short English questionnaire3
that is related to this particular research. The whole study took an average of 50 minutes to complete which contained several sets of surveys. The lab setting was preferred for all group conditions of the survey in comparison to online survey in order to create the similar research environment for all participants during this entire data collection process.
Recruitment of Participants
The study was uploaded at FEB Research Lab Sign-Up website where participants can enroll. It was also promoted via variety of Facebook groups for students and through personal contacts to attract more student respondents. Respondents recruited were participating for 4 research points or for reward money of 8 euros. Initially, 373 participants took part in the whole study while only 248 participants were randomly included into this particular study’s four experimental groups. The remaining 125 were randomly included into another two group conditions outside the aforementioned groups for a different study purpose. That other study was conducted by a fellow student in the same Master Thesis group who was interested in a different research question. These excluded participants would be considered irrelevant to this specific study and would automatically be filtered out from further analysis.
Moreover, two weeks after the experiment ended, participants who had taken part in public condition were being informed about the leaderboard in the form of e-mail. Participants who received the final leaderboard standing as well as the debriefing of the study in the email4 were only those who
had given their consent that their names would be compared to each other and would appear in the leaderboard.
Results
Description of Participants
There were two analysis conducted in this study, which were the analysis for the main questionnaire and for the manipulation check. Out of the 248 participants who had participated in the study, 18.1% of the respondents (N=45) were filtered out due to attention check failure. All of the remaining 203 participants who passed the first type of attention check were then included in subsequent analyses. As previously mentioned, this first type of attention check was the attention check item that was incorporated into the independent variable scales. Furthermore, out of those 203 respondents, 56.7% were female and 49.3% were Dutch5. Moreover, this study were also
predominantly participated (91.1%) by students aged between 17 and 25 years old.
In addition to the main analysis, an extra analysis was also conducted with only 139 participants who passed not only the first, but also the second type attention checks that was also previously mentioned in the methodology section. The analysis was conducted to pursue greater validity of the response due to cleaner dataset. However, the results of significance, trends, and interaction effect of the variables were basically similar. Thus, the dataset and analysis of 203 respondents were used and shown for the main interpretation of this study in order to maintain higher statistical power due to a larger number of participants included.
.
Manipulation Check
It was generally suggested from the previous theories that efficiency behaviors are associated with higher status than that of curtailment behaviors. In this study, it was then presupposed that participants would be more likely to assess efficiency behaviors with higher scores in terms of the effectiveness to communicate status to other people. Since the scale of measurement ranged from “ineffective” (1) to “effective” (7), participants were expected to display at least a moderately higher rating for efficiency behaviors (i.e. higher than 4) and a lower rating for curtailment behaviors (i.e. lower than 4).
Especially for this manipulation check analysis, however, the number of participants included were different than those of the main analysis. Out of those 203 participants, only 141 participants were eventually assessed into the further manipulation check analysis. This situation occurred because
10 participants failed the manipulation check and the remainder of participants (N=52) were screened out due to the sudden adjustments made in this specific manipulation check question during the second day of the experiment. Hence, this specific manipulation analysis only included participants from day three of the experiment onwards. Since this manipulation check question were situated outside the group conditions, changes in the question did not affect the main questionnaire. Thus, the upcoming main analysis would still use the aforementioned 203 respondents.
A paired samples t-test6 was conducted to compare the average ratings of efficiency and
curtailment activities. In accordance to the previous assumptions, the manipulation check showed that there is statistically significant differences in the scores for efficiency (M=4.81, SD=1.10) and curtailment (M=4.27, SD=1.35) conditions; t(140)=4.84, p<.0005. In efficiency, the highest mean score went to “purchase organic foods to eat” (M=5.35, SD=1.26), whereas in curtailment it was held by “use reusable bags for groceries when shopping” (M=4.94, SD=1.76).
Even though the curtailment scores were higher and the efficiency scores were not as high as initially expected, these results suggest that efficiency activities are significantly considered as a more appropriate tool to signal one’s status to others. Specifically, it is suggested then when participants were to effectively communicate their socio-economic status to other people, they would choose to perform efficiency activities.
Anticipated Signaling Behaviors in Public vs. Private
A two-factor (2x2) Analysis of Variance7 was conducted to assess whether the likelihood to
perform efficiency and curtailment behaviors are moderated by publicness. This presumption means that the relationship between types of environmentally-conscious behaviors and the extent those behaviors would be performed are expected to depend on the value of publicness level. However, contrary to previous assumption, the results might prove otherwise.
The results confirmed that the relationship of the independent and the dependent variable was not qualified by an interaction between types and publicness due to lack of statistically significant interaction (F(1, 199)=.412, p=.522, ηp2=.002). This reaffirmed that the relationship between types of
behaviors and the strength of those behaviors being performed was not significantly different for participants in public or private settings, which opposed to what had been initially expected in H1. However, even though not statistically significant, the result displayed in Figure 2 (N=203) has shown
that public condition has expectedly triggered participants to evaluate their environmentally-conscious performance higher than those in private condition. Also, in contrast to what has been expected, public situation apparently did not seem to discourage people from expressing their curtailment intentions. It turned out that in public setting, participants were more motivated to both curtailment (M=4.20, SD=1.00) and efficiency (M=3.21, SD=1.23). In contrast, both curtailment (M=3.89,
SD=1.00) and efficiency (M=3.09, SD=.94) were relatively downplayed in private. Moreover, the
higher mean differences of curtailment behaviors in public vs. private settings showed further that public setting gave them higher motivation to signal their curtailment activities.
The additional analysis was also run for the participants who passed both attention checks (N=139)8 to ensure identical pattern of results. Similar to the previous analysis, there are apparently
no significant interaction effect occurred F(1, 135)=.207, p=.65, ηp2=.002.
Figure 2. Means and (Standard Deviation) of each anticipated signaling behaviors measure in public and private conditions in bar graph. Higher mean scores indicate higher likelihood to signal behaviors. These measures were rated on a scale from (1) to (7)
Efficiency vs. Curtailment Behaviors
This study initially intended to see whether differences in publicness level have moderating effect. But, since the interaction did not play out well, the main effect was then assessed to check
8 The complete results of the two-way ANOVA (N=139) is shown in Appendix B
(1.23)
(1.00)
(.94)
whether the relationship between different types of behaviors towards behaviors engagement is significant. Furthermore, using the same ANOVA results, this paper found out whether, in general, people are more likely to perform efficiency than curtailment behaviors.
Out of 203 participants who passed the attention check, the results revealed a significant main effect of types of behaviors on the likelihood to perform said behaviors. However, against H1, the results instead indicated that participants are significantly likely to engage in curtailment behaviors (M=4.04, SD=.94) than in efficiency behaviors (M=3.15, SD=1.09); F(1, 199)=38.97, p<.001, ηp2=.164. Even though participants correlated list of efficiency activities with higher status, those
assessments turned out did not motivate them to perform the said behaviors. Moreover, Figure 3 (N=203) displays the means on each scale per condition.
Again, the analysis with 139 respondents will be presented to ensure similar effect. Indeed, the analysis also showed the similar trend with a significant main effect of efficiency (M=3.12, SD=1.14) and curtailment behaviors (M=4.07, SD=.95); F(1, 135)=27.95, p<.001, ηp2=.172.
Figure 3. Means and (Standard Deviation) on Efficiency and Curtailment scales. Higher mean scores represent higher likelihood to perform those efficiency and curtailment behaviors. These measures were rated on a scale from (1) to (7)
In contrast to what I have expected in the hypothesis that curtailment would be outperformed by its opposite counterpart, it turned out that the behavior instead significantly outperformed efficiency. Moreover, in public condition, even though the statistics indeed showed the trend towards the expected direction, it did not convey a sound statistical evidence on moderation effect of different
(1.09)
levels of public and private condition towards the relationship between types of behaviors and behaviors performed. Hence, it can be safely concluded that the Hypothesis 1 of this study is rejected.
Additional Moderated Mediation Analysis
Out of curiosity, to enrich the previous analysis of this study, instead of only tested socio-economic status motives for the manipulation check (N=141), I used this measure as a mediator to check whether perceived differences in ‘effectiveness to convey socio-economic status’ explains the difference between public and private conditions. When previous treatment effect apparently did not depend on moderator (Public vs. Private), there might be a potential mediation process that depends on that moderator (Muller et al., 2005). In this extra analysis, public situations were expected to prevent people from expressing curtailment behaviors because people associate the behaviors as an ineffective way to convey socio-economic status.
Before employing Model 14 (bias-corrected, 5000 bootstrap samples) of the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013)9, the two behavior subscales Efficiency and Curtailment were combined into one Status
subscale (α=.865, M=4.54, SD=1.04). Unfortunately, however, when the analysis was run, it showed that types of behaviors did not affect the Status score (β = .24, t(139)= 1.36, p = .17), even though
Status significantly influenced the likelihood to engage in behaviors (β = .28, t(136)= 3.26, p < .001).
Still, it is agreed that there was no indirect effect of different types of behaviors on the likelihood to perform that behaviors through status associated with environmentally-conscious behaviors. Moreover, there was also no interaction effect between status scores and publicness level (β = .17,
t(136) = .99, p = .32). Thus, it can be further resolved in addition to the previous conclusion that
neither status associated with behaviors nor public vs private condition has a sound statistical evidence that mediated or moderated the relationship between different types of environmentally-conscious behaviors people were situated in and their likelihood to perform those behaviors
General Discussion
This paper mainly questioned whether individuals would use more efficiency behaviors than curtailment and whether they would overstate their environmentally-conscious behaviors if they were
faced with a more public situation. Instead, this study had proved that people were significantly more likely to engage in curtailment than efficiency activities. Also, the differences in public and private conditions did not significantly conveyed any interaction effect. However, participants were inclined to overstate their green behaviors when they knew their answers could appear in public and could lead them to be seen by others as being environmentally friendly. Even though that statement may not be answered with statistical certainty, the survey still produced noteworthy results.
Participants in the survey have indicated, despite lack of significant interaction results, a more interest in overstating their overall environmentally-conscious behaviors when situated in public rather than private settings. This phenomenon was still in line with the previous theory from Griskevicius et al. (2010) that stated when shopping in private, individuals are more likely to decrease their preferences on green products. This means that when participants were aware that their decision was at the risk to be exhibited to an audience, such as the leaderboard, they would be more motivated to be seen as pro-environmental by being more engaged in environmentally-conscious behaviors.
Contrary to the previous predictions, however, results suggested that participants were significantly motivated to engage in curtailment instead of efficiency activities despite the association with lower status. Moreover, perceived status also did not play a role as a mediator that enhances the environmentally-conscious behaviors in public setting as had been initially expected. This fact turned over previous research by Griskevicius et al. (2010) where people would desire green products when the price are relatively expensive because such products can signal their pro-environmental and wealth. In fact, the results suggested that people do not want to downplay their curtailment activities. Apparently, the high status rating that could be obtained from performing efficiency was not a powerful motivator to engage in those behaviors as what Welte and Anastasio (2010) had argued.
Even though people were aware that perceived status on efficiency behaviors enable them to communicate their status standings more efficiently, it did not motivate them to hide their curtailment activities even when they were faced with a possible audience. The fact that they remained motivated to display their overall green behaviors in public rather than in private might say something about participants’ enduring signaling motivation regarding self-presentational goal previously mentioned by Sadalla and Krull (1995). However, people then might be more concerned with the goals other than the motivation to communicate socio-economic status to other people. These self-presentational goals might be the goals that were more likely to be associated with curtailment which, according to (Sadalla & Krull, 1995), were “You want to convince someone that you are a caring, concerned individual” and “You want
Limitations and Future Research Directions
By analyzing the previous results conveyed in this study, the main limitation of the lab experiment for this paper were the participants that mainly participated by students. Student sampling that has been recruited for this study might be the main caused of why the trend of the results indicated the curtailment behaviors prevailed the efficiency counterparts. According to the data from OECD (2014), participants with age group of 18 to 25 years old, the 91% sample of the experiment, tend to have lower disposable income in comparison to the older age groups (i.e. 26-40 and 41-50 age groups). That might discourage them to perform efficiency that requires more buying activities in relative to curtailment behaviors. Lower disposable income could hint that this specific age group are unlikely to afford constant, relatively-costly buying purchase that this behavior entails. This way, status or other self-presentational goals might not be a priority for students since they could only afford the behaviors that slightly less financially demanding (Jansson et al., 2010). Thus, it might prove the aforementioned theory by Brooks & Wilson (2015) that curtailment behaviors they were engaged in to be more triggered by necessity rather than choice.
Moreover, with the majority of respondents in this experiment were Dutch and German nationalities whose countries provide a considerably low income inequality might predict that these respondents have less need to purchase status goods or to engage in status-relevant activities. According to Walasek and Brown (2015), the states with greater income inequality are more prone to socio-economic status competition which is more attractive in more unequal societies. Thus, when the equality is higher, society would be less concern with unfavorable social comparison, hence less need to devote their resources in status-seeking behaviors that associated with efficiency activities.
Further, future research could take better considerations on participants recruited to obtained higher representative of the population. A more varied sampling population other than student sampling might indicated different trends from what had been previously conveyed. This paper could also open the gate for many potential avenues to see in more depth among varieties of age groups, nationalities, and income groups to see whether those conditions can generate greater statistical evidence.
status-activated groups for the future methodology might also help researcher to compare results with a more sound statistical proof. I’m also keen to see in future research that would dig the actual motives that would be the most effective that trigger individuals to engage in efficiency and curtailment in their daily lives.
Managerial and Societal Implications
Previous theories have indicated that performing curtailment behaviors might be better for the environment in the long-run compared to efficiency behaviors. As what Brooks and Wilson (2015) have mentioned, curtailment activities could reduce overall material and energy consumption which diffusion could sustain the environment. Since curtailment behaviors were already in the higher trend, marketers could further promote those activities to increase the diffusion throughout whole level of societies.
Marketers for non-profit, pro-environmental organizations, or even for-profit companies could re-shape their strategies by relating both curtailment and efficiency behaviors with conservation motivation rather than socio-economic status motivation. Since curtailment behaviors have already been more associated with conservation motivation, relative to efficiency behaviors (Sadalla & Krull, 1995), marketers then need to adjust the promotion materials of efficiency products or services by ensuring the consumers that engaging in efficiency can let other people know that they are concerned and care about the conservation of the environment. This way would be better rather than to keep emphasizing on the socio-economic status motivations. Hence, it can be a better avenue to motivate consumers who are keen to opt for efficiency as their way of being environmentally conscious.
the association with socio-economic status motivations. One of many ways to obtain that goal is to dissociate efficiency with high price. For example, marketers could strategically conduct periodical price promotion in eco-friendly clothing stores or in organic food stores in order to make the pro-environmental efforts seem affordable.
Lastly, to elicit contributors’ environmental consciousness, organizations could use creative attempt by giving them visible signs, such as armbands or pins, which clearly shows contributors’ efforts to other people. Thank-you gifts and advertised contributors list could also help to clearly display their self-sacrificing acts (Ariely et al., 2009). In conclusion, promoting this curtailment and efficiency activities need to be further emphasized as conservation acts and be visible to others where such acts could promote the reputation of the well-doer.
Conclusion
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Appendices
Curtailment Behaviors for Public & Private Conditions
Consent for Public Condition
Private Condition Instructions
Exit Questions
End of survey.
B. Results
Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Use biodegradable, reusable
paper towels to clean 141 1 7 4.46 1.632 Purchase organic foods to eat
141 1 7 5.35 1.259
Install water efficient
showerheads at home to save water
141 1 7 4.72 1.721
Switch to energy-efficient light
bulbs at home 141 1 7 5.03 1.612
Purchase eco-friendly clothing 141 1 7 4.77 1.606 Use bio or all-natural cleaning
products (detergents or soaps) 141 1 7 4.58 1.622 Purchase biodegradable plastic
bags for groceries when shopping
141 1 7 4.77 1.624
Valid N (listwise) 141
Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Use old clothes or rags to clean
141 1 7 3.72 1.849
Growing or raising food for
yourself to eat 141 1 7 4.45 1.869
Take shorter showers at home
to save water 141 1 7 4.23 1.903
Turn off lights when they are
not being used 141 1 7 4.72 1.987
Repair some clothing instead of buying new ones to make them remain wearable
141 1 7 3.96 1.872
Use home-made cleaning
products (detergents or soaps) 141 1 7 3.87 1.790 Use reusable bags for
4. Moderated Mediation (N=141)
Run MATRIX procedure:
************* PROCESS Procedure for SPSS Release 2.16.3 ****************** Written by Andrew F. Hayes, Ph.D. www.afhayes.com
Documentation available in Hayes (2013). www.guilford.com/p/hayes3 ************************************************************************** Model = 14 Y = Sum_all X = Types M = Sum_Stat V = Publicne Sample size 141 ************************************************************************** Outcome: Sum_Stat Model Summary R R-sq MSE F df1 df2 p .1156 .0134 1.0794 1.8615 1.0000 139.0000 .1747 Model
constant -.3560 .2795 -1.2738 .2049 -.9086 .1966 Types .2402 .1760 1.3644 .1747 -.1079 .5883 ************************************************************************** Outcome: Sum_all Model Summary R R-sq MSE F df1 df2 p .5169 .2672 .9148 14.2712 4.0000 136.0000 .0000 Model
coeff se t p LLCI ULCI constant 2.2044 .2727 8.0852 .0000 1.6653 2.7436 Sum_Stat .2822 .0864 3.2647 .0014 .1112 .4531 Types .8833 .1656 5.3348 .0000 .5558 1.2107 Publicne -.1469 .1644 -.8933 .3733 -.4720 .1782 int_1 .1703 .1723 .9884 .3247 -.1704 .5109 Product terms key:
int_1 Sum_Stat X Publicne
******************** DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS ************************* Direct effect of X on Y
Effect SE t p LLCI ULCI .8833 .1656 5.3348 .0000 .5558 1.2107 Conditional indirect effect(s) of X on Y at values of the moderator(s): Mediator
Publicne Effect Boot SE BootLLCI BootULCI Sum_Stat -.5106 .0469 .0617 -.0140 .2500 Sum_Stat .4894 .0878 .0670 -.0327 .2355
******************** INDEX OF MODERATED MEDIATION ************************ Mediator
Index SE(Boot) BootLLCI BootULCI Sum_Stat .0409 .0503 -.0257 .1902
When the moderator is dichotomous, this is a test of equality of the conditional indirect effects in the two groups.
******************** ANALYSIS NOTES AND WARNINGS ************************* Number of bootstrap samples for bias corrected bootstrap confidence
intervals: 5000
Level of confidence for all confidence intervals in output: 95.00
NOTE: All standard errors for continuous outcome models are based on the HC3 estimator
--- END MATRIX ---
C. Follow-up and Debriefing E-mail
The letter below is the example of lab experiment follow-up and debriefing e-mail that was sent to participants who were sorted into public condition (Group 1 & Group 2)
Dear Participant,
Several weeks ago, between 21st of November to 2nd of December 2016, you participated in one of our study called "How Open-Minded are You?".
First of all, we would like to thank you for your commitment to participate in this study.
As you may recall, one of the questions of this study was about your current behavior towards
environmentally-conscious activities.
You might also remember from the instructions in the survey that your answers were going to be compared with others'. So that we could determine those who have best scores and we could share which participants are among the Top 20 Most Environmentally-Conscious in the form of leaderboard.
Below are the names who made it into the Top 20:
1 Alexander Wasser 2 Vasileios Papagiannis 3 YiFang Luo
4 Shabrina Izazi Anwar 5 Juhyeon Lee 6 Aishwarya Ravi 7 Sarah Neumann 8 Angela Quaglietta 9 Alex Raicu 10 Alissa Waterman 11 Stan Kruize 12 James Steele 13 Marie Charnet
14 Wildan Aprian Wiharsanto 15 Amarins Jellie Zijlstra 16 Eileen Gevers 17 Lena Baeunker 18 Alexandru Jouni 19 Alexander van Zyl 20 Amber Voors
The purpose of this study was to see how Public condition vs. Private condition can affect participants' answer when they were stating how likely those environmentally-conscious activities are being performed. In this case, instructing that your answers are going to be compared and are at risk to end up at a leaderboard, means you were included in Public condition. These instructions were necessary to be told to create the sense of publicness that may motivate participants to overstate their answers compared to those in Private condition where their answers would remain anonymous. This was triggered by the fact that people would be more likely perform better or to be seen more environmentally-friendly in the presence of other people. We are now currently working on our analysis to see whether this prediction is true.
Until then, we would like to thank you again for your participation.
And we'd like to ensure you that participants receiving this email are only those who agreed that their names would be at risk to be at the leaderboard and those who agreed to be contacted further about this study. Kindly let me know if you have any problems with this email (or this study) or if you'd like to be informed more about our study results in the future.
Thank you very much for your attention. Best Regards,
Ramadina Andasha Mahalita
Using Efficiency instead of Curtailment
to be Seen as Environmentally Conscious
The Influence of Anticipated Audience on the Likelihood to Display Two Dimensions of Environmentally-conscious Behaviors
Introduction
• Reputational motivation: core drivers of how individuals behave and
how they signal their behaviors to others
1• Individuals use consumption to display wealth and potential earnings
(socio-economic status)
2• As recently awareness of environmental problem increases, engaging in
conservation behaviors can build a reputation
3• Since the characteristics of environmentally-conscious behaviors are
varied, there may be only some activities that able to maintain or
enhance one’s status standings
4• If reputation & status-driven motivation are the reason why individuals
opt to become environmentally-friendly, What if these behaviors
instead lower one’s perceived socio-economic status?
Will they still engage in these behaviors or will they avoid them
completely?
Theoretical Foundation
• Efficiency Behavior
• Provide the same goods/services
as consumption-intensive
behavior, but with lower
environmental impact.
5• Purchase energy-efficient
products
• OR, Investing in home structural
changes
4• Requires no drastic lifestyle
changes
6more attractive
choice
• Associated with high
socio-economic status
1• Higher cost, repeated purchase
actions
determined by higher
income
7• Curtailment Behavior
• Reduce overall use of
goods/services by reshaping
behaviors instead of purchasing
substitutions
4• Requires change of habits
inconvenience
harder to
implement
8• Less financially demanding
lack ability to signal wealth
1• Linked with lower
socio-economic status (lower
income)
5• Non-monetary costs
(inconvenience) resulted from
curtailment overshadowed by
economical motivations
1Coping with Anticipated
Audience
• Level of publicness (public vs.
private) influences purchase
decisions
9• Status motivation and
self-presentational goals
shaped
and enhanced in public
strong motivator to implement
environmental behaviors
12• In public, people are more
inclined to purchase higher priced
green products
10efficiency
• Curtailment
rarely cost
money, increase personal savings
(monetary incentive)
more
flourished in private
11Research Question & Conceptual Model
Research Question
Will the level of publicness (public vs. private) influence people to display different types of
environmentally-conscious behaviors (efficiency vs. curtailment)?
Conceptual Model
Hypothesis
H
1: Publicness has an effect on the likelihood of people to perform environmentally-conscious behaviors
when they are faced with curtailment of efficiency
Likelihood to
Display
Behaviors
Types of
Environmentally-conscious Behavior
Publicness
Efficiency vs. Curtailment H1Independent Variable Dependent Variable
Moderator
