Paradoxical Effects of Green Communication Frames

• In Event: Proenvironmental Behaviour and Attitudes

Abstract

Research into green advertising mainly investigates whether green advertising is effective and in what circumstances it is especially effective. What happens after people have purchased a green product has, in contrast, been hardly investigated. In two experiments, we show that green framing may have paradoxical post-purchase effects, such that purchasing a green product may lead to environmentally unfriendly behavior (a so-called licensing effect). Our results show that these post-purchase effects of green framing are moderated by green identity: only people with a weak green identity show these paradoxical post-purchase licensing effects, people with a strong green identity are unlikely to show these effects. Furthermore, we show that the shades of green framing do not affect the magnitude of the licensing effect. Products emphasizing their environmental nature heavily (“dark green”) do not lead to bigger licensing effects than products emphasizing their environmental nature only a little bit (“light green”).

Authors

• Marijn H. C. Meijers, ASCoR, University of Amsterdam

• Peeter Verlegh, U of Amsterdam

• Marret K. Noordewier, Leiden U

• Edith Gloria Smit, U of Amsterdam