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Evaluative Conditioning in Consumer Psychology: Can Affective Images of Climate Change Influence Sustainability Perception of Supermarket Products?

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Persuasive Technology (PERSUASIVE 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13832))

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Abstract

Most individuals are aware of the wastefulness of plastic packaging but do not know what sustainable packaging exactly is or choose not to buy it. In an effort to educate consumers about the sustainability of their products, the current study employed an evaluative conditioning approach in which sustainable and unsustainable products were paired with affective images of climate change. We hypothesized that conditioning consumers with positive and negative images of nature would either reinforce or weaken their perception of the sustainability of the product. Sustainability Ratings revealed that consumers already had a strong opinion about (un)sustainability of the product packaging. Nevertheless, the information provided during the conditioning phase impacted their ratings such that sustainable products that were paired with a negative image were perceived less sustainable after conditioning. These results have implications for communication practitioners and pave the way for future research into evaluative conditioning as a technology to impact consumer attitude and behavior.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tilburg University, 5037 AB, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Nikki Leeuwis & Maryam Alimardani

  2. Unravel Research, 3581 KW, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Nikki Leeuwis & Tom van Bommel

Authors
  1. Nikki Leeuwis
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  2. Tom van Bommel
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  3. Maryam Alimardani
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Correspondence to Nikki Leeuwis .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Alexander Meschtscherjakov

  2. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Cees Midden

  3. Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Jaap Ham

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Leeuwis, N., van Bommel, T., Alimardani, M. (2023). Evaluative Conditioning in Consumer Psychology: Can Affective Images of Climate Change Influence Sustainability Perception of Supermarket Products?. In: Meschtscherjakov, A., Midden, C., Ham, J. (eds) Persuasive Technology. PERSUASIVE 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13832. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30933-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30933-5_7

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