ǂThe ǂrole of moral foundations, anticipated guilt and personal responsibility in predicting anti-consumption for environmental reasons

Barbara Culiberg (Author), Hichang Cho (Author), Mateja Kos Koklič (Author), Vesna Žabkar (Author)

Abstract

In response to the growing importance of environmental issues, more and more consumers are turning to anti-consumption by reducing, rejecting, or avoiding consumption. Covering the intersection of sustainable consumption and anti-consumption, previous studies relied on socio-cognitive models to explain this decision. In order to extend their findings, we consider the moral and emotional perspectives to examine reducing consumption for environmental reasons in a particular context, i.e. air travel. It is against this backdrop that we propose a conceptual model that includes moral foundations as the main antecedent, followed by anticipated guilt and personal responsibility, while intention to reduce consumption (i.e. air travel) for environmental reasons, positive word of mouth about reducing air travel (WOM) and environmental activism represent the outcomes. The proposed model is tested on a sample of 511 respondents from a UK online consumer panel. Our results confirm the importance of moral foundations, anticipated guilt and personal responsibility and their interplay in the pre- diction of intention to reduce consumption for environmental reasons. Anticipated guilt influences WOM, while personal responsibility influences activism. In addition, intentions to reduce consumption for environmental reasons have a positive impact on WOM and environmental activism. There are several implications for public policy makers and NGOs that fight against climate change that derive from these findings, as well as research opportunities for academics interested in this topic.

Keywords

potrošnja;varstvo okolja;vedenje potrošnikov;consumption;environmental protection;consumer behaviour;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2022
Typology:	1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:	UL EF - Faculty of Economics
UDC:	339.138
COBISS:	92704771
ISSN:	0167-4544
Views:	168
Downloads:	41
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

Secondary language:	Slovenian
Secondary keywords:	potrošnja;varstvo okolja;vedenje potrošnikov;
Type (COBISS):	Article
Chronology:	[in press] 2022
DOI:	10.1007/s10551-021-05016-7
ID:	14728206