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- Title
The Impact of Choice Architecture on Sustainable Consumer Behavior: The Role of Guilt.
- Authors
Theotokis, Aristeidis; Manganari, Emmanouela
- Abstract
Companies often encourage consumers to engage in sustainable behaviors using their services in a more environmentally friendly or green way, such as reusing the towels in a hotel or replacing paper bank statements by electronic statements. Sometimes, the option of green service is implied as the default and consumers can opt-out, while in other cases consumers need to explicitly ask ( opt-in) for switching to a green service. This research examines the effectiveness of choice architecture and particularly the different default policies-i.e., the alternative the consumer receives if he/she does not explicitly request otherwise-in engaging consumer green behavior. In four experiments, we show that the opt-out default policy is more effective than the opt-in, because it increases anticipated guilt. This effect is stronger for consumers who are less conscious for the environment (Study 1).We also show that a forced choice policy, in which the consumer is not automatically assigned to any condition and is forced to choose between the green and the non-green service option, is more effective than the opt-in policy and not significantly more effective than the opt-out policy (Study 2). Finally, we show that the role of defaults is weakened (enhanced), if a negotiated (reciprocal) cooperation strategy is used (Study 3). The article contributes to the literature of defaults and provides managerial and public policy implications for the design of green services.
- Subjects
CHOICE (Psychology); GUILT (Psychology); CONSUMER behavior; SUSTAINABLE development; DEFAULT reasoning
- Publication
Journal of Business Ethics, 2015, Vol 131, Issue 2, p423
- ISSN
0167-4544
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10551-014-2287-4