Understanding Green Consumer Behaviour

A Qualitative Cognitive Approach

Sigmund A. Wagner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134728596
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Despite a century of intensive research into the human mind, our understanding of how people in everyday life actually make choices and solve problems is surprisingly limited. Through the study of green, environmentally friendly consumers, this book examines basic aspects of the working of the human mind, and recommends a fundamental re-orientation regarding the ideas and methods which are applied in contemporary cognitive research. It addresses such questions as:

• How do consumers develop 'meaning' regarding green products?
• How are such processes subconsciously structured by certain activities of the mind?
• How intelligent and successful are consumers in assessing the environmentally friendly attributes of products in daily life?

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on insights from psychology and anthropology as well as the author's own intensive field research, the book's interdisciplinary framework allows the author to develop an understanding of the entire cognitive process. Taking an international approach, and incorporating original, ground-breaking anthropological and cognitive research, this book is a must read for advanced students of consumer behaviour, the sociology of consumption and behavioural psychology.

1
A COGNITIVE STUDY INTO ENVIRONMENTALLY ORIENTED CONSUMPTION

THE GREEN CONSUMER

In recent years, environmental issues have received much attention, reflecting rising public concern and awareness of environmental problems. Pressure groups have been campaigning vigorously for the environment; media reporting on environmental issues has increased dramatically; the environment has moved up on the agenda in political decision making; numerous regulations and laws for the protection of the environment have been passed; and through the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and its follow-up summits in Berlin in 1995 and in New York in 1997, targets have been set for international cooperation and action (Keating 1993).

There is considerable evidence that most western markets have been affected by green consumer behaviour, that means by behaviour that reflects concern about the effects of manufacturing and consumption on the natural environment. Besides legal changes, over the past decade many companies began to feel the impact of market forces, such as changing buying habits of environmentally oriented consumers and boycotting behaviour that resulted from media reporting and pressure group activity. It has been suggested that up to 70 per cent of consumers have occasionally considered environmental issues in their shopping behaviour. Surveys of environmentally oriented consumer behaviour indicate that the number of consumers who include environmentally oriented considerations in their buying decisions has been comparatively stable (Worcester 1996:7–9, Wong et al. 1995:2, 8–12, 16, Peattie 1995:5, Upsall and Worcester 1995:9, Billig 1994:9, 101–2, Sloan 1993:72, Simon 1992:272). A hard core of about 10 per cent of British consumers is said to have integrated environmental issues very consistently in their buying behaviours. In other markets like the USA, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries, such a market segment of highly committed green consumers may be somewhat bigger.

Whether there has been a reversal over the years regarding the occurrence of green consumer behaviour is hotly debated. Green product options have stayed on the shelves of many retailers, which indicates that green consumers have remained at least a niche market that is worth catering for. But in general, the British green consumer can still be considered a ‘sleeping giant’ (Worcester 1995:1; also Strong 1995:104–5) who only awakes from time to time to flex his muscles, for instance at the time of Shell’s Brent Spar experience in 1995.

Green consumer behaviour raises a host of intriguing questions that cover a wide range of issues and that cut across many social science disciplines:

• What drives the green consumer? What are the values, motives, desires and needs behind green consumer behaviour? What emotions and feelings are connected with green shopping?
• Does green consumer behaviour carry an ethical, religious and/or spiritual dimension?
• What knowledge and understanding of environmental issues is held by green consumers? How does learning occur regarding green consumption?
• Does the green consumer have a distinctive socio-demographic profile? Is the occurrence of green consumer behaviour related to age, gender, income, political views, etc.?
• What influence is exerted by peer groups and social networks to make a person behave in an environmentally friendly way?
• Is green consumer behaviour an expression of a specific life-style choice?
• What impacts do media reports and pressure group campaigns have on ‘public opinion’ and on the occurrence of green consumer behaviour? Is the impact temporary or lasting?
• How far is green consumer behaviour shaped by the cultural climate in which it takes place? How far is green consumer behaviour developing a cultural impact of its own?
• Is green consumer behaviour part of a counter-culture that attracts only individuals who have disengaged from society at large? Does green consumer behaviour reflect consumer alienation with conventional social practices?

These questions touch upon issues examined by different academic disciplines such as psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, moral philosophy, theology, etc. No single study can hope to answer all of these questions (and many others that might be raised in relation to green consumer behaviour). This study focused on knowledge and learning related to green consumer behaviour. It approached the green consumer from a cognitive perspective which is traditionally associated with psychological research. Cognition refers to knowledge and intelligence, to understanding and learning. It reflects processes of self-communication at the level of the mind of the individual.

Cognition was researched in this study from the subjective standpoint of the consumer: behaviour was approached from the point of view that ‘[a] situation has meaning only through people’s interpretations and definitions. Their actions, in turn, stem from this meaning’ (Bogdan and Taylor 1975:14). How consumers solved the green shopping problem was examined: how the environmental friendliness of a product was assessed, what information was paid attention to when a buying decision was being made, and how experience affected the build-up of knowledge over time.

Consumers apparently find it difficult to assess the environmental friendliness of a product. Consumer confusion and scepticism about the greenness of products is reported to be widespread. This is thought to present an important (cognitive) barrier to the adoption of green products, which, in turn, prevents the market mechanism from developing an ethical impact on companies.

The findings made by this study on green consumer cognition are of practical relevance. They can be related to normative questions as they are addressed in management studies or public policy studies. A cognitive understanding of green consumer behaviour is highly relevant for a number of corporate activities, ranging from product development and market segmentation to branding strategies and communications management (Nelissen and Scheepers 1992:21, Frost and Mensik 1991:71, Vandermerve and Oliff 1990:15). For instance, it has been pointed out that market segmentation should focus on ‘abstract’ product benefits rather than ‘objective’ product attributes (Johnson and Fornell 1987:215, Haley 1968)—and environmental friendliness can provide for such an abstract product benefit. Similarly, research findings on consumer cognition can contribute to the structuring of communications management. Questions can be addressed like how green marketing communications should be organized or how consumer education should be structured through public policy bodies. When companies first encountered green consumer behaviour in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a communication problem quickly developed. Some companies put forward slogans and claims regarding the environmental friendliness of a product without backing them up by the actual greening of manufacturing processes. Such a superficial and sometimes even deceptive approach led to public perceptions of companies as jumping on to a ‘green bandwagon’. Accusations of ‘green hype’ followed swiftly (Eden 1994–5:1–5, Simon 1992:280, MacKenzie 1991:74, Mintel 1991:9, CA 1990:10–12, CA 1989:433). But ‘green bandwagon’ accusations also seemed to affect companies which had put a substantial effort into making their products and production processes less environmentally damaging. In the end, they were not rewarded in the marketplace (Wong et al. 1995:2–3, 8–14).

The failure of much green communication, both corporate and non-corporate, has been related to a lack of understanding of green consumer behaviour at a cognitive level: ‘As far as the requirement to “be understood” is concerned, far too much communication has assumed detailed consumer knowledge… across a whole range of environmental issues’ (Clifton and Buss 1992:248; also Wong et al. 1995:13–15, Keating 1993:6–7, Simon 1992:276). This highlights the need for cognitive research into green consumer behaviour.

Issues of how to apply cognitive research findings on green consumer behaviour to practical tasks, such as communications management, are not assessed in detail here. They have been examined in depth elsewhere (Wagner 1996a:245–92, Wagner 1996b, Wagner 1997, Wagner forthcoming/a). What is outlined in this study are findings on green consumer cognition.

This study has contributed to a better understanding of green consumption, which is a contemporary phenomenon in many western societies. In terms of its theoretical contribution, the study provided insights into certain aspects of cognition. The methodological approach taken was distinctively different from traditional psychological research both with regard to its conceptual approach, which aimed for theory exploration and generation, and, related to it, its qualitatively oriented empirical research design, which approached research in a ‘real-life’ context. Certain ideas from cognitive anthropology were drawn upon for theory generation and for the conducting of empirical research.

This discussion addressed some central issues in social science research, namely how to conduct research into human behaviour (here: consumer cognition). For some time, stern criticism has been voiced regarding the way cognitive psychology and consumer behaviour research have tried to generate scientific knowledge. Accusations of irrelevance and triviality are widespread (see this chapter and also chapters 2 and 3). Such criticism has been taken seriously here. The study has demonstrated that cognitive research can be both insightful and relevant.

A RESEARCH PROGRAMME FOR CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Traditionally, scientific research into consumer cognition, and into cognition in general, has been conducted within a psychological framework. Since such an approach was extended in this study to include anthropological ideas, it appears worthwhile to clarify some of the general principles and recommendations that are given by a philosophy of science debate on how to conduct ‘interdisciplinary’ scientific research. The notion of ‘interdisciplinary’ research is applied somewhat hesitantly in this context since it may bias the discussion of how to structure scientific research from its outset (as will be explained subsequently).

Disciplines and research programmes

In the following, principles for the structuring of (positive)¹ interdisciplinary scientific research draw upon Karl Popper’s and Imre Lakatos’s suggestions on how to organize scientific research.

In a broad sense, science as such can be understood as ‘one big’ research programme that is ruled and organized by certain principles, which are discussed and developed in a philosophy of science debate. In this sense, all scientific disciplines, e.g. physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, etc., can be considered as part of a single research programme—the scientific enterprise as such. However, in the following a more discriminatory understanding of ‘research programme’ is applied.

The idea of a discipline reflects how the investigation and discovery of knowledge has historically been institutionalized at universities in the form of faculties or departments, e.g. psychology, sociology, anthropology, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. While a discipline orientation is in one way or another unavoidable and possibly even desirable for all scientific research, it also carries a certain methodological baggage which the enlightened scientist should be aware of: first, through a purely discipline-oriented perception of research problems, the researcher may be ‘blinded’ and remain unaware of interesting ‘interdisciplinary’ problems. Second, in discipline-oriented research, underlying assumptions and maxims on how to conduct research are rarely questioned and made explicit. Through the concept of a research programme, the ‘hidden’ methodological baggage of disciplinary research can be dragged into the open.

The idea of a research programme partly coincides with, partly diverts from the concept of a discipline. In general, the idea of a discipline is narrower than that of a research programme. The idea of a discipline can always be subsumed under the concept of a research programme while the reverse may not be the case. Hence, a discussion of principles for structuring a research programme applies equally to discipline-oriented and interdisciplinary research. They are governed by the same methodological principles. Subsequently, principles for the structuring of a research programme are discussed (a) with regard to the specific subject matter under investigation (Popper’s principles of problem dependence); and (b) with regard to how the solving of a research problem is to be organized (Lakatos’s principle of the heuristic nature of research). On the basis of this discussion, implications for the structuring of a research programme for consumer behaviour research are outlined.

Problem dependence

Scientific disciplines can be understood as general research programmes within which only certain problems are investigated that differ from discipline to discipline. As indicated, the idea of a research programme encompasses both disciplinary and interdisciplinary research. A discipline is always classified as a research programme whereas the reverse need not necessarily be the case.

General research programmes, e.g. in the form of a discipline such as psychology, further developed over time into special research programmes either at sub-discipline level, e.g. cognitive psychology, or at interdisciplinary level, e.g. a cognitive research programme which would not define itself by a discipline but rather by the problem under investigation.

Every research programme (and every discipline) is narrowly focused in terms of the subject matter that is investigated. ‘Reality’ as such is not researched. Rather, what drives the structuring of scientific research is problem dependence. A research programme is essentially built in reference to a certain ‘problem-situation’, to use a term from Popper:

every rational theory, no matter whether scientific or philosophical, is rational in so far as it tries to solve certain problems. A theory is comprehensible and reasonable only in its relation to a given problem-situation, and it can be rationally discussed only by discussing this relation…. The conscious task before the scientist is always the solution of a problem through the construction of a theory which solves the problem.

(Popper 1978:199, 222)

Research within the boundaries of a discipline can be interpreted as a special case of problem-driven research. Every discipline has a certain, very narrow focus for investigating only some problems of ‘all’ interesting problems. An answer to the question of what problems a scientist should investigate as far as subject matter is concerned is not possible. The choice of a research problem carries an arbitrary element which cannot be resolved by a philosophy of science debate.

Popper stresses that a research problem, but not necessarily a discipline, should instigate the logic for the organization of scientific research. He points out that a discipline orientation is unimportant for the structuring of scientific research: ‘We are not students of some subject matter but students of problems. And problems may cut right across the borders of any subject matter or discipline’ (Popper 1978:67; see also Fuller 1993:33–8, Becker 1976:4–5)—or they might not, one could add here. This implies that subject matter as such is comparatively unimportant for the structuring of scientific research.

The principle of problem dependence highlights the fact that the researcher has considerable degrees of freedom in framing and choosing a research problem. Degrees of freedom exist in terms of whether a disciplinary or an interdisciplinary problem is researched. This distinction is only worth mentioning because of the discipline-oriented way scientific research developed historically. Scientists today cannot ignore this process: each discipline has developed a certain problem focus as well as a certain way of solving problems. This makes the job of the scientific researcher less difficult when it comes to the structuring of research.

Degrees of freedom also exist in terms of the type of theories and empirical research methods that are applied to an investigation. Depending on the research problem, an appropriate approach for ‘theorizing’ or ‘conceptual research’ and, related to it, an appropriate approach for empirical research, has to be chosen. As Friedman put it: ‘Everything depends on the problem’ (Friedman 1966:36; also Homann 1994:11–12, Suchaneck 1992:39–44, Lévi-Strauss 1985:6–7, 25).

With regard to the specific nature of a research problem, trade-offs on a theoretical plane between disciplinary and interdisciplinary research as well as trade-offs on an empirical plane between quantitative and qualitative research methods have to be decided upon. The issue at stake is not to decide between less systematic or more systematic research: disciplinary research is neither superior nor inferior to interdisciplinary research per se, and neither is quantitative research better or worse than qualitative research as such. Rather, different systematic strengths and weaknesses have to be negotiated and traded off when a specific research problem is framed (chapters 2 and 3 illustrate this framing process for research on green consumer cognition).

As has been pointed out, certain degrees of freedom exist regarding the choice and framing of a research problem, but this does not imply that anything goes (and for that reason the notion of ‘degrees of freedom’ has been applied here). Trade-off decisions in framing a research problem relate strongly to the way a research programme is organized heuristically: what restrains the scientist’s freedom in choosing and framing a research problem is the heuristic nature of research. Also, Popper stressed that subject matter as such is quite unimportant for structuring a research problem, but interestingly, he went on to acknowledge that most problems ‘“belong” in some sense to one or another of the traditional disciplines’ (Popper 1978:67)....

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• FIGURES
• TABLES
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1: A COGNITIVE STUDY INTO ENVIRONMENTALLY ORIENTED CONSUMPTION
• 2: COGNITIVE CONSUMER RESEARCH
• 3: EMPIRICAL RESEARCH INTO GREEN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
• 4: CLASSIFICATION OF CONSUMERS
• 5: INTERPRETATION OF KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES
• 6: EXPERIENCE AND LEARNING: THE PROBLEM SOLVING BEHAVIOUR OF THE GREEN CONSUMER
• 7: THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE
• APPENDICES
• GLOSSARY
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY