ICAP 2014 Abstract

Environmental Psychology, Sustainable Development / Psychologie de l'environnement, développement durable

ICAP14-ABS3324

Signaling feedback: how signaling you are “green”, may make you act more like it

Danny Taufik ^1,*Jan Willem Bolderdijk ¹Linda Steg ¹

¹University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands

Abstract: Recent research has suggested that environmental actions can signal who you are as a person, but which factors determine an environmental action’s signaling strength? Environmental actions can be framed in different ways using different units; these units often stress either the environmental consequences of people’s actions (like reductions in CO₂ emissions) or the financial consequences (like monetary savings). We argue that the type of unit that is used also has a diagnostic function: reductions in CO₂ emissions may signal something about how environmentally friendly someone is, while monetary savings give people a notion of how financially savvy they are. Moreover, the strength of this signaling function may in turn affect the likelihood that those actions are adopted.  

Additionally, the signaling strength of environmental actions can also depend on the perceived effort that is necessary to conduct these actions. Stressing an action’s monetary savings implies that the action has direct individual benefits: it is made salient that a person saves money. This is not the case for environmental savings as reducing CO₂-emissions do not give a person such direct individual benefits. Therefore, we propose that using environmental units to frame the environmental action can further increase this action’s signaling strength – the action might be perceived as somewhat more effortful, as no direct individual benefits in return for adopting the action are made salient. We conducted an experiment where we manipulated the type of unit used for framing environmental actions – using either an environmental unit or a financial unit – to determine its effects on the environmental actions’ signaling strength and in turn the likelihood of those actions being adopted. The results of the study will be presented at the congress.  

Keywords: Feedbackpro-environmental behaviorSignaling