La cognition sociale à l'aide de la promotion de la consommation durable : les cas de l'automaticité comportementale et de l'hypocrisie induite
(2005)
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- (en) For several years, social marketing strategies have been deployed by governments and consumer associations in order to promote sustainable consumer behaviors. These actions are mainly based on a rational conception of human behavior. Two characteristics emerge from this view. According to a first characteritstic, consumers deliberately choose products according to the information given to them. They assess the weight of that information in terms of cost and benefits in order to take their decision. From this point of view, providing a sufficient number of adequate information is sufficient to influence the decision process. Despite this idea, recent research suggests that behavior can rise automatically from the perception of the situation (Dijksterhuis & Bargh, 2001). Perceived situational cues automatically activate behaviors in order to allow the people to react fast and in an adapted manner. This approach was used in a first section of our research. Data from three experimental studies support the idea that the perception of ecological cues implicitly influences the ecological value of the products chosen by consumers, but only when these cues are negatively related to ecology (e.g., pollution). In addition, this effect does not depend on preexisting ecological consumer habits. The second characteristic suggests that consumers act in line with their attitude. If the attitude is changed, behavior will be affected as well. Many studies examined the relation between attitude and behavior. These studies aimed at (1) developing measurements and techniques to refine the prediction of the behavior by the attitude, and (2) trying to identify moderating variables of the attitude-behavior link. Other researchers endeavored to reinforce the emergence of specific behaviors by making people aware about the fact that their behavior is sometimes inconsistent with the opinion they advocate publicly. This last framework, known as induced hypocrisy (Aronson, 1999), was examined in the second part of our research. Two experiments illustrate that hypocrisy can sometimes have no behavioral effect, and even a negative effects. In addition, the second study brings relevance to induced hypocrisy as an applicable marketing technique.
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Liégeois, A. (2005). La cognition sociale à l’aide de la promotion de la consommation durable : les cas de l’automaticité comportementale et de l’hypocrisie induite. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/129720