“Sure I always
look to buy fair trade/organic/local produce” – a statement we are hearing more
and more as sustainable living becomes increasingly mainstream while countries
review their green policies and scientists debate the consequences and impacts
manmade fossil fuels have. People are also looking at their values when
it comes to ethical buying and the changes they can have on the environment.
While working as
an advertising strategist, I ran a focus group and conversations shifted to
sustainable living. One person remarked how an ad I’d shown them connected with
her because of the “sustainability bit”. Almost like a drawn out yawn this idea
seemed to spread. Suddenly people who hadn’t observed any ethical or
sustainable message were chiming in on how “it connected with how they lived
their lives sustainably” and low and behold I was in a room full of greenies.
This is a phenomenon commonly known in focus groups as we humans have a sheepish
capacity and so it didn’t surprise me, but it did get me wondering, of those
that said they lived their lives ‘sustainably’ – how many of them truly did? The reality is that ethically minded
consumers do not always walk their talk.
Behavioural
psychologists are finding that there’s a distinct gap between what consumers
say they are going to do and what they actually do at the point of purchase (Auger and Devinney, 2007; Belk et al.,
2005; Carrigan and Attalla, 2001; Follows and Jobber, 2000; Shaw et al., 2007).
Empirical studies in the field of consumer behaviour more broadly already suggest
that purchase intentions do not translate literally into people’s purchase
behaviour. So how do we understand better the process the mind takes when
making these purchase decisions in the context of ethical consumption?
Researchers have long understood that intentions are
poor predictors of behaviour and that gaining
insight into this gap is of critical importance to understanding, interpreting,
predicting and influencing consumer behaviour (Bagozzi, 1993). The idea that “actions speak louder than
words” comes to mind. The gap, however, remains poorly understood, especially
within the ethical consumerism context and given people tend to respond with
answers they believe to be socially acceptable, overstating the importance of
ethical considerations in their buying behaviour, the truth of the matter is that what they say is not what they do.
But what is equally interesting is
that people do have a concept of what is ‘right or socially acceptable’ yet
still behave in a way they themselves might
perceive as ‘wrong’. In the
context of human behaviour is this a surprise? Do purchasers of fizzy drinks
believe that drinking sugar fuelled fizzy liquids is benefitting them, let
alone society?
The majority of
ethical consumer behaviour models are built on a core cognitive progression:
Using this
framework, there are two circumstances that may contribute to the overall
disparity between attitude and behaviour – a gap between consumer attitude and
purchase intent, and a gap between purchase intent and actual purchase
behaviour. The majority of research within the ethical consumerism field on the
attitude–intention–behaviour gap has focused on the disparities and
relationships between attitudes and intentions of the ethically minded. In contrast, I wanted to look primarily at
the gap between ethical purchase intentions and actual buying behaviour.
But attitude–intent–behaviour
models of consumer choice artificially isolate decision-making, ignoring the
external effect of the environment/situation on purchase behaviour. This
interaction with environmental factors, as advertisers know, is proven to
influence decision-making. Cognitive approaches assume perfect and constant conditions
without consideration of environmental or social settings, thus oversimplifying
the complex translation of purchase intentions into actual buying behaviour.
Also when looking at this model within the ethical consumerism context, scant
attention has been given to the actual control the individuals have over their
personal behaviour at the point of purchase and how this differs according to
their own perceptions of behavioural control when they were formulating their
purchase intentions (however perceptions of control rarely reflect actual
control).
Finally, there’s
a lack of ethical and general consumer decision-making studies that measure and
observe actual buying behaviour, as opposed to stated intentions or
self-reported behaviour, is a significant methodological limitation that leaves
the extant research open to the influence of social desirability bias (Auger
and Devinney, 2007). Social desirability
bias occurs when people feel social pressure to respond with answers in
research that they believe to be socially acceptable. Social desirability
bias is inherent to research methods that employ self-reported behaviour, and
is pronounced in studies with ethical considerations (Carrigan and Attalla,
2001; Podsakoff and Organ, 1986).
So while my
lovely focus group may have had all the right intentions; was their behaviour a
true reflection on this? Did they have the control to follow through with their
actions? The idiom; “the path to hell is paved with good intentions” came to
mind. Given we live in a world where our environment is perpetually
manipulating our perception of reality, where we surrender much of our power and responsibility to
act within a system of control, do we have enough motivation to be true to our
intentions? Do we have enough power to act according to what we feel is right as
opposed to what is convenient in a world that binds us through other finite
resources; time and money? As a researcher in my career; I wondered this. As a wonderer, hearing plenty of "blah blah blah" (future intent), I've witnessed it. Once I met a traveler in the Holy Lake town of Pushkar whom I offered a biscuit to - he politely explaining that he wouldn't eat anything that comes in plastic wrapping while in India. Now that to me is absolute control. Walking the talk.
