Choosing to Make a Difference:
The Salience of Choice Increases People’s Support for the Environment
A BEST talk
at Society of Consumer Psychology ConferenceResearch Question
Different theories have made conflicting predictions regarding whether the salience of choice—the extent to which people construe actions as choices, i.e., choice mindset—would increase or decrease people’s environmental behaviors.
This research aims to reconcile these contradictions.
How do the salience of choice affect people’s support for the environment?
Studies
1. Survey
Sample: a nationally representative sample recruited through a marketing research firm
Sampling method : stratified proportional sampling based on multiple characteristics, including gender, age, and ethnicity
Analysis: Pearson correlation & OLS regression
Key Insights:
As perceived salience of choice increases by 1 SD(standard deviation), people show 0.12 SD greater support for environmental taxes, such as disposable cup charge, packaged food tax, plastic bag fee, and an increase in gas tax.
2. Survey
Sample: individuals recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk
Analysis: Tobit regression to address the zero-inflated, non-negative, and continuous nature of donation amount (DV)
Key Insights:
The more salient people perceive choices in their life, the more they donate to the advocacy group working for environmental causes.
3. Experiment: A Facebook A/B Test
Ads Setup:
length & budget: for 6 days with a daily budget of $44 to achieve 80% of power to detect a difference
performance goal: maximize the number of link clicks
target audience: UK-based Facebook users aged between 18 and 64
placement: FB newsfeeds only to reduce variations in the way people view the ad
Campaign Outcomes:
reached 36,978 users
attracted 1,925 link clicks, 131 likes/reactions, 80 shares, 2 comments, and 18 other forms of interactions.
Analysis: two-sample proportion test to compare the click-through rate
Key Insights:
A subtle increase in the salience of choice, achieved by the simple addition of two words—"choose to” in a ad, results in a 12% boost in link clicks.
Ad version - A (the control version)
Ad version - B (the treatment version)
pretested, showing no difference in perceived attractiveness.Conclusion & Policy Implication
The more salient the idea of choice in people's minds, the more likely they are to support the environment, including endorsing environmental initiatives, donating to environmental causes, and actively participating in environmental actions.
A Smart Intervention
Subtly enhancing the salience of choice in ads or other communication message can be a cost-effective and easily implementable way for governments, NGOs, and companies to nudge people to support for the environment.