“I” get license but “we” keep consistent: The role of self-construal in subsequent pro-environmental decision

Abstract

How to motivate consumers to maintain environmentally responsible consumption choice rather than occasional green consumption is an important component of sustainability within modern society. Yet, past literature provides two contradictory routes for sequential pro-environmental decisions: consistency effect and licensing effect. The consistency effect builds on follows the logics of self-perception theory and implies that consumers tend to repeat their prior environmentally responsible and irresponsible decisions; the licensing effect follows a goal-based logic to highlight that past pro-environmental behaviour produces a “license” to engage in less pro-environmental behaviour. To reconcile these contradictory predictions, this study extends the existing literature by following a consistent, goal-based logic in theory and exploring self-construal as a moderator that switches from one mode of sequential pro-environmental decisions to the other. Three experimental studies affirm that self-consistency effect occurs for consumers with an accessible interdependent self-construal, but licensing effect is more pronounced for consumers with an accessible independent self-construal. In addition, the interdependent- consistency effect will be stronger and the independent-licensing effect will be weaker if consumers are reminded of high tendency of others’ pro-environmental behaviour in the first decision. Together, these results shed light on the downstream consequences for consumers of pro-environmental choice, with implications for the marketing and regulation of such products.