How Our Sustainable Consumption Decisions Depend on Our Social Environment
By: Bea Alexandra Wintschnig
Tags: Psychology, Consumption, Sustainability, Friendship, Choices

My favourite online community for environmental and social impact, WONDR, has recently asked me to share my knowledge about how our social contacts influence our sustainable consumption behaviour on their blog. Since I am very excited about this topic because it was part of my bachelor thesis, I do not want to withhold my insights from you, my dear blog readers. So please enjoy my summary of the article for WONDR’s blog.

The influence from our loved ones

If you are, like me, trying to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, you have probably already experienced situations where you have given in to wishes of family or friends who do not have your level of sensitivity when it comes to environmental or social issues. Interacting with people who do not share and perhaps do not even understand your sustainability principles can be a barrier to pursuing them.

However, this influence also has a positive side, since it works the other way around as well. You might be the reason why your friends decide to opt for the ecologically and socially sound chocolate you told them about or why they cook vegan for your next get-together. I personally believe in the importance of recognising the positive influence we can have on the consumption decisions of family and friends — and also unrelated others, as explained next.

The power of social norms

While it is quite obvious that we are influenced by people close to us, there is also a more hidden impact that our social environment has on our consumption. It is exerted by so-called social norms, which describe behaviours that we consider socially appropriate and approved of in a given situation.

Let me demonstrate this with a question: If you entered a cinema where all but one seat is free, would you sit right next to this one stranger? Because of the social norms that prevail in our society, most people would feel weird about it and would choose a seat away from that person. The same mechanism can lead us to behave in a more sustainable manner, since our social norms make us feel that this is the socially appropriate action to take. Take the example of littering. While this is not really considered a criminal offence in most countries, dropping a piece of chewing gum on the floor does not feel right — even less so when other people take notice.

Various studies have found evidence of the phenomenon that social norms have an impact on our behaviour. For instance, one experiment tested how effective signs are that encourage hotel guests to reuse their towels. The results showed that when the message on the sign communicated that other guests also reuse their towels, thus indicating a social norm, the sign was far more successful in convincing people to reuse their towel than when it conveyed a traditional environmental message. In the context of online shopping, another experiment revealed that individuals are 65% more likely to buy at least one eco-friendly item if they were told that fellow shoppers did so as well. The phenomenon was also found to hold true for major purchases like solar panels: If your close-by neighbour has a panel on their roof, the probability is higher that you will install one two.

The role played by stereotyping and social normalization

Similar to the influence that our perception of what is appropriate has on us, we are also affected by what we feel is ‘normal’ to do within our social environment. Most of us are reluctant to behave in ways that are not considered ‘normal’ and, conversely, tend to engage more in activities that are regarded ‘mainstream’. This helps to understand why some of our unsustainable behaviours are difficult to change: we take them for granted and do not even question them because we see just consider them ‘normal’ and part of modern life, such as driving a car or buying water in plastic bottles instead of refilling one bottle.

Research has also found that some sustainable behaviours or the people who undertake them are perceived as uncool, making the adoption of such behaviours for others less attractive. For instance, one study found that people often stereotype drivers of electric cars negatively, labelling them as “dull,” or “lacking a sense of fun” and characterizing the typical user as “a spinster lady currently working in a library, hugging trees and going to public meetings about saving the planet” (p.148). Since this is not exactly how most of us want to be viewed, such negative association cherished by others can hold us back from consuming sustainable alternatives. Another scientific discovery is that eco-friendliness is stereotyped as feminine by both men and women. This has a negative effect on the willingness of male consumers to adopt sustainable behaviours as they do not want to weaken their masculine image.

How social desirability shapes our consumption decisions

Nevertheless, with growing mainstreamness of environmental issues, another social force could unleash its positive power: social desirability. In addition to satisfying non-social and basic needs, such as food or shelter, consumption also serves social functions like status-seeking. As with non-sustainable choices, some of us consciously or unconsciously use the selection of a sustainable option to leave a positive impression on others. Some major sustainable purchases, such as zero-carbon houses or electric cars, are in fact used to convey social status to the people around us.

Although I dislike the fact that people in our society think they can impress others with what they possess, there is yet a positive side to social desirability. As touched-upon above, we are therefore more inclined to behave in a socially desirable manner when others can observe and evaluate our behaviour. If other people walk behind you, you are less likely to throw your gum on the floor instead of properly putting it into the next bin. This tendency was scientifically proven by a study in which participants had to choose between an eco-friendly granola bar (tagged with “Good for you and the environment”) and a traditional one (“A healthy, tasty snack”). When the choice was made in public rather than in private, twice as many people chose the sustainable option.

Additionally, scientists have found that you are even less likely to act unsustainably if you have previously made a public commitment not to do so. In their study, they observed that hotel guests who committed to engage in environmentally friendly behaviour during their stay at check-in and received a label pin as a public symbol of their commitment were more likely to actually practice sustainable actions.

There is another factor, which is related to the effect just mentioned, that drives us to act more responsibly. It is the behaviour of our so-called ingroup members. According to the concept of ingroups and outgroups, which is commonly discussed in sociology, each person psychologically identifies other people as either ingroup or outgroup members, depending on how connected or similar they feel to them. Now researchers have found that we are more likely to take sustainable actions if our ingroup members do so. This suggests that we sometimes decide to engage in an environmentally-friendly behaviour not on basis of our own environmentally-friendly attitudes, but in order to distinguish ourselves from others, to signal that we belong to a certain group or because it makes us feel connected to members of our ingroup.

Unfortunately, there is also a negative side to this effect, as above-mentioned. Due to the fact that sustainable actions are sometimes viewed unfavourably, we do not want to belong to the group of “tree huggers” or “eco-freaks” and therefore might decide to not follow our environmentally-friendly attitudes.

However, I always see the positive effect of social desirability: Simply by behaving in a sustainable manner ourselves, we can contribute a tiny bit to shifting other people’s choices into a more sustainable direction, since our actions support the perception within society that such behavior is both appropriate and normal. Furthermore, we thereby might encourage people who view us as a member of their ingroup to act responsibly.

The positive effect of communities of likeminded people

What supports us in our efforts to consume sustainably are (online) communities where we find likeminded people who we can ask questions, share practical tips and ideas with, or discuss issues important to us. This is especially valuable since we might not find people among our circle of friends who share our interest in sustainability. The informational benefits we gain from online communities have proved to reinforce our sustainable consumption. The existence of communities is of particular importance in this context since buying sustainable products is for many people a non-routine decision that causes high levels of uncertainty. In order to reduce this uncertainty, people search for information provided by relevant others, which they can find in their circle of friends or sustainable communities.

The variety of other influencing factors

The social environment is only one of the eight main influencing factors that I discovered while delving among a large pile of academic paper for my bachelor thesis, which aimed at providing an overview of the barriers and drivers of sustainable consumption. Here are the remaining ones, shown by an illustration I created for my thesis:

If you now gained the taste for learning more about what determines our decision to consume sustainably, which I hope, I would be more than happy to send you my bachelor thesis (and thus spare you the time of going through over 100 papers to find out the status quo of research yourself). Just e-mail me or drop me a message on Linkedin.