Evaluative Conditioning in Consumer Psychology: Can Affective Images of Climate Change Influence Sustainability Perception of Supermarket Products?
Leeuwis,Nikki van Bommel,Tom Alimardani,Maryam
Leeuwis,Nikki
van Bommel,Tom
Alimardani,Maryam
Abstract
Most individuals are aware of the wastefulness of plastic packaging but do not know what sustainable packaging exactly is or choose not to buy it. In an effort to educate consumers about the sustainability of their products, the current study employed an evaluative conditioning approach in which sustainable and unsustainable products were paired with affective images of climate change. We hypothesized that conditioning consumers with positive and negative images of nature would either reinforce or weaken their perception of the sustainability of the product. Sustainability Ratings revealed that consumers already had a strong opinion about (un)sustainability of the product packaging. Nevertheless, the information provided during the conditioning phase impacted their ratings such that sustainable products that were paired with a negative image were perceived less sustainable after conditioning. These results have implications for communication practitioners and pave the way for future research into evaluative conditioning as a technology to impact consumer attitude and behavior.
Description
Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Date
2023
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Publisher
Springer Cham
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Keywords
Evaluative Conditioning, Affective Images, Sustainability, Behavior Change, Implicit Associations, SDG 13 - Climate Action
Citation
Leeuwis, N, van Bommel, T & Alimardani, M 2023, Evaluative Conditioning in Consumer Psychology : Can Affective Images of Climate Change Influence Sustainability Perception of Supermarket Products? in A Meschtscherjakov, C Midden & J Ham (eds), Persuasive Technology: 18th International Conference, PERSUASIVE 2023, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, April 19–21, 2023, Proceedings (pp. 90-104).. vol. 13832, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 13832 LNCS, Springer Cham, pp. 90-104. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30933-5_7