The 1451 Review (Volume 1) 2021

Psychobabble or Substantial? How Sustainability
Psychologically Impacts Consumer Preferences
Ana Isabel Bacallado
Psychology and Business (Hons) from the University of Glasgow
Abstract: Sustainability has become an important influence on consumer
choice. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate how information on
sustainability affects consumer purchasing behaviours. All the participants
rated clothing items based on their personal preferences. Then, they
completed a preference-based decision-making task, which consisted of
choosing amongst two different clothing items. In half of those trials, but
fully interleaved, the clothing items had labels giving information on
sustainability (labels-on). In contrast, in the other half, no information on
sustainability was given (labels-off). In the end, participants completed a
self-reported questionnaire where they revealed their attitudes and
behaviours towards sustainability. Results show that people made more
sustainable choices when sustainability information was available, even
when it involved choosing the less-preferred item. Similarly, people took
longer to make a decision when their preference for the item and the
sustainability information were incongruent. Henceforth, these results
indicate that sustainability plays a crucial role in consumer purchasing
behaviours as a result of the sustainability bias affecting the decisionmaking
process. The findings of this study may have significant implications
not only on understanding how information on sustainability alters
consumer choices, but also in prospective marketing strategies.
Introduction
Reducing the impact that society has on the environment has become one of the
most pressing concerns of our time. In particular, the retail industry has a
massive impact on environmental degradation. Further than moral
responsibility, it has been suggested that implementing sustainable practices,
which are not detrimental to future practices from taking place, can become a
win-win opportunity for retail organizations given customers’ increasing interest
in sustainable products.
For this reason, many marketing experts have changed their businesses
practices to be more sustainable. This way, not only are they having a positive
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