TY - JOUR
T1 - Dynamic norms drive sustainable consumption
T2 - Norm-based nudging helps café customers to avoid disposable to-go-cups
AU - Loschelder, David D.
AU - Siepelmeyer, Henrik
AU - Fischer, Daniel
AU - Rubel, Julian A.
N1 - Funding Information:
All data, experimental materials, and the pre-registration document are available on the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/nxurm ). David Loschelder and Henrik Siepelmeyer contributed equally to this article. We thank two anonymous reviewers, Dr. Gregory Walton, and the handling guest editor for their constructive and helpful feedback on and suggestions for this manuscript. Parts of this research were funded by a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG LO 2201/4-1) awarded to David Loschelder.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2019/12
Y1 - 2019/12
N2 - Excess use of disposable to-go-cups constitutes a severe sustainability threat. Behavioral economics and economic psychology suggest various antidotes. In the present paper, we report two studies – a large-scale intervention field study and an experiment – that constitute independent, pre-registered, and open replication attempts of a recently-introduced intervention procedure: dynamic social norms. We tested whether a dynamic norm, along the lines of “more and more customers are switching from to-go-cups to a sustainable alternative. Be part of this movement and choose a reusable mug” – can help café customers to avoid disposable to-go-cups. Data from a fourteen-week intervention experiment with a total of 23,946 hot beverages sold – 18,019 in disposable cups and 5927 in reusable mugs – suggest that a dynamic-norm intervention for sustainable consumption helps customers avoid disposable cups and increases their use of reusable alternatives by 17.3% (or 4.1 percentage points). A follow-up online experiment corroborates this pattern and shows advantageous effects of a dynamic norm relative to a no-norm control condition, a static norm, an injunctive norm, and a combination of static-and-injunctive norm. In light of inconsistent and, at times, failed or even reversed replication results for seminal social norms studies, the present pre-registered studies indicate that dynamic norms are an effective means to facilitate sustainable behavior. We discuss scientific and applied implications and avenues for future research.
AB - Excess use of disposable to-go-cups constitutes a severe sustainability threat. Behavioral economics and economic psychology suggest various antidotes. In the present paper, we report two studies – a large-scale intervention field study and an experiment – that constitute independent, pre-registered, and open replication attempts of a recently-introduced intervention procedure: dynamic social norms. We tested whether a dynamic norm, along the lines of “more and more customers are switching from to-go-cups to a sustainable alternative. Be part of this movement and choose a reusable mug” – can help café customers to avoid disposable to-go-cups. Data from a fourteen-week intervention experiment with a total of 23,946 hot beverages sold – 18,019 in disposable cups and 5927 in reusable mugs – suggest that a dynamic-norm intervention for sustainable consumption helps customers avoid disposable cups and increases their use of reusable alternatives by 17.3% (or 4.1 percentage points). A follow-up online experiment corroborates this pattern and shows advantageous effects of a dynamic norm relative to a no-norm control condition, a static norm, an injunctive norm, and a combination of static-and-injunctive norm. In light of inconsistent and, at times, failed or even reversed replication results for seminal social norms studies, the present pre-registered studies indicate that dynamic norms are an effective means to facilitate sustainable behavior. We discuss scientific and applied implications and avenues for future research.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062240254&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85062240254&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.joep.2019.02.002
DO - 10.1016/j.joep.2019.02.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85062240254
SN - 0167-4870
VL - 75
JO - Journal of Economic Psychology
JF - Journal of Economic Psychology
M1 - 102146
ER -