The Double-Edged Sword of Ethical Nudges: Does Inducing Hypocrisy Help or Hinder the Adoption of Pro-environmental Behaviors?

Karoline Gamma (), Robert Mai () and Moritz Loock ()
Additional contact information
Karoline Gamma: University of St. Gallen
Robert Mai: Grenoble Ecole de Management, DFR Marketing
Moritz Loock: University of St. Gallen

Journal of Business Ethics, 2020, vol. 161, issue 2, No 6, 373 pages

Abstract: Abstract To promote ethical and pro-environmental behavior, hypocrisy sometimes is made salient to individuals: i.e., they are made aware that their past behavior does not conform to expressed norms. The fact that this strategy may backfire and may even reduce the likelihood of individuals performing the desired action has been largely overlooked. This paper develops a theory of how hypocrisy stimulates two opposing heuristic processes: one that favors the former, positive outcome (the eco-citizenship effect) and one that renders hypocrisy non-effective (resistance-to-habit-change effect). We test the model and reveal important boundary conditions using the finding of a comprehensive field experiment (1377 consumers). Situational (public vs. private advocacy) and individual factors (low vs. high construal levels) determine which of the competing mechanisms is activated. The paper contributes a novel understanding to managers and scholars of how hypocrisy operates and illuminates the contingencies of when this strategy is beneficial.

Keywords: Ethical consumption; Hypocrisy; Construal level; Eco-citizenship; Resistance to change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-018-3930-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:161:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-018-3930-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3930-2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().