Mental accounting in sustainable consumption choices

Last registered on January 31, 2019
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Mental accounting in sustainable consumption choices
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003727
Initial registration date
December 28, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
December 30, 2018, 10:02 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
January 31, 2019, 2:00 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Germany
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Anna Weiß
Affiliation
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Thomas Lauer
PI Affiliation
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2019-01-14
End date
2019-03-02
Keywords
Environment & Energy, Other
Additional Keywords
mental accounting, consumption, sustainability, behavioral spillovers, experimental economics
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
A growing branch of literature focuses on how to induce people to choose more sustainable products. There are some promising approaches, but they all target only one, independent dimension of pro-environmental behavior (PEB) at one point in time.
However, PEBs are not a set of decisions made independently from each other. Several studies have found behavioral spillovers between PEBs. These spillovers can be either positive (Lanzini and Thøgersen 2014; e.g. Margetts and Kashima 2017) – meaning that having performed a PEB in the past makes a future PEB more likely – or negative (e.g. Chatelain et al. 2018). Besides the usual explanations like moral licensing (e.g. Mazar and Zhong 2010) and rebound effects (e.g. Haan and Girod 2009) for negative behavioral spillovers, Haan and Girod (2009) have proposed mental accounting (cf. Thaler 1980; 2008).
Only few studies so far have considered spillovers between PEB and sustainable consumer choices. Lanzini and Thøgersen (2014) as well as Margetts and Kashima (2017) investigate whether green shopping decisions spill over to PEB, while Thøgersen and Ölander (2003) examined how these choices evolve over time. In a field experiment in China, Zhou et al. (2017) find positive spillovers from PEB to the willingness to pay for eco-labelled rice. Chatelain et al. (2018) test the theory that mental accounting not only influences expenditures, but also environmental-friendly behavior. They find that people are therefore unlikely to perform two similar PEBs within a short time frame if these behaviors are strongly linked to each other.
This study will be the first one to investigate the spillover between pro-environmental choices in an incentivized online experiment with high stakes, compared to prior experiments that considered for example recycling efforts. The results may foster the discussion of whether hoping for a catalyzing effect of one PEB to another is counterproductive (cf. Thøgersen and Crompton 2009).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Lauer, Thomas and Anna Weiß. 2019. "Mental accounting in sustainable consumption choices." AEA RCT Registry. January 31. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3727-3.0
Former Citation
Lauer, Thomas and Anna Weiß. 2019. "Mental accounting in sustainable consumption choices." AEA RCT Registry. January 31. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3727/history/40871
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Control condition: only online shop
Immediate treatment: donation task directly before online shop
Lagged treatment: donation task one week before online shop
Intervention Start Date
2019-02-14
Intervention End Date
2019-02-21

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
donation amount, share of organic products purchase (number of products and amount spent)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In the first stage of the experiment, participants receive an endowment of 100 € and are invited to donate to an environmental cause (Margetts and Kashima 2017; Hahnel and Brosch 2018), while the rest of this money goes to their bank account. The participants know that 10 % of them will be randomly drawn for the payments to be implemented.
In the second stage, participants purchase at an online shop, which offers products in at least one sustainable and one conventional variety (Demarque et al. 2015). The different options of the same product will only vary in whether they are conventional or sustainable, where the latter will be clearly labelled. Participants have a budget of 25 € to spend and again a 10 % chance of receiving the goods they have purchased (this lottery is independent of that for stage one). The share of sustainable products purchased will then be used as an indicator of pro-environmental choices.
The experiment will be divided into two experimental treatments: In the immediate treatment both parts of the experiment are played subsequently, while in the lagged treatment part 2 of the experiment is conducted one week after part 1. In both cases, the instructions will only be given for the part the participants are currently working on in order to prevent strategic behavior. Participants in the control condition only play part 2.
Both stages are similar in that their endowment is windfall money, the winning chance is equally high, and the decision is between either being sustainable or keeping more (either money or products) to oneself. By comparing the results from the immediate and the lagged treatment, it can be tested what impact the strength of the mental linkage has. in addition, by means of a short survey at the end of the experiment, the results can be validated through the participants answers.
Experimental Design Details
Explanation of experimental design:
Behavioral spillovers and especially mental accounting arise primarily when there is a strong mental linkage between both PEBs. Therefore, the effect size can be expected to be largest when both PEBs are similar to each other and occur within a relatively short time frame. I would like to extend the line of investigation proposed by Chatelain et al. (2018), testing whether mental accounting may lead to underconsumption of sustainable products following a prior PEB. In addition to changing the domain from recycling to sustainable consumption, the experiment will be adjusted in two ways. First, by using an incentivized choice experiment I increase the stakes to ensure more truthful behavior. Second, I will test different time frames to examine their impact on mental accounting.
Randomization Method
by computer
Randomization Unit
individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
none
Sample size: planned number of observations
160 university students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Control condition: 50 students
Immediate treatment: 55 students
Lagged treatment: 55 students
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials