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http://abs.sagepub.com/content/55/8/1052The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0002764211407903

2011 55: 1052American Behavioral ScientistJohn Thgersen

Green Shopping : For Selfish Reasons or the Common Good?

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ABS407903 ABS55810.1177/0002764211407903Thgersen American BehavioralScientist

1Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Corresponding Author:

John Thgersen, Haslegaardsvej 10, DK-8210 Aarhus V, Denmark

Email: [email protected]

Green Shopping:

For Selfish Reasons

or the Common Good?

John Thgersen 1

Abstract

Findings suggesting that consumers buy green products, such as organic foods, forselfish reasons are usually accepted at face value. In this article, the author argues that theevidence backing this claim is questionable and that it reflects post hoc rationalizationsand self-presentation biases on behalf of respondents. Knowing that one has incurredsubstantial personal costs by contributing to a worthy cause can create an uneasinessthat one is motivated to relieve, especially when one is uncertain about the ultimateimpact of this contribution. A possible coping strategy is to adjust ones beliefs aboutintangible private benefits in a way that justifies (bolsters) ones purchasing decision.A survey study among a representative sample of approximately 4,000 respondents

from four European countries (Denmark, Germany, United Kingdom, and Italy)confirmed that this is exactly what green consumers do. On the basis of Schwartzscomprehensive Picture Value Questionnaire, it is also found that buying organic foodis strongly, consistently, and positively related to unselfish values (i.e., universalism) butnot selfish values (e.g., status, security, pleasure). This suggests that consumers at leaststart to buy these products for unselfish reasons (the common good). However, afterhaving done so, they seem to bolster their beliefs about private benefits to preserve aself-image of being a competent and rational person.

Keywords

green shopping, confirmation bias, bolstering, values, organic food, survey

Prosocial behavior is not easily reconciled with the neoclassical paradigms parable ofa selfish, optimizing (i.e., rational) decision maker. Therefore, scholars in the neoclas-sical tradition attempt to explain prosocial behavior as selfishness in disguise (e.g., the

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warm glow of giving), or they marginalize it by claiming that it rarely occurs inpractice (cf. Etzioni, 2011 [this issue]). This article discusses a specific, but quite com-mon, case of marginalization: the reduction of proenvironmental behavior to selfish

behavior. Many journalists, politicians, and other professionals are guilty of this type ofmarginalization, but so are many empirical researchers who are sloppy in their interpre-tation of the evidence they have collected.

Take as a concrete example the finding that consumers buy organic food products,one of recent years most successful green product categories, because they believethey are healthier, taste better, or are of superior quality in other ways, that is, forselfish reasons. Such findings are usually accepted at face value, both when they arebased on survey studies (e.g., Magnusson, Arvola, Hursti, berg, & Sjden, 2001,2003; McEachern & McClean, 2002) and when they are based on qualitative research

(e.g., Baker, Thompson, & Engelken, 2004; Fotopoulos, Krystallis, & Ness, 2003;Makatouni, 2002; Zanoli & Naspetti, 2002). However, qualitative interviews and cor-relational survey data are obviously mute about causality. Hence, in spite of appear-ance, the claim that most peoples proenvironmental behavior, such as buying organicfood products, is primarily motivated by selfish reasons actually lacks a sound empir-ical backing. Furthermore, as will be argued in the following, an equally valid alter-native interpretation of these empirical findings exists.

Selfishness is obviously an aspect of human nature. Nothing is more salient thanones own needs and wants. Hence, acting in a prosocial way depends on the ability to

focus attention on below-the-surface aspects of a situation, to go beyond the super-ficial, and this requires cognitive skill and maturity (Kohlberg, 1984). This also meansthat selfishness is viewed as the default, and a claim that people do something for self-ish reasons hardly needs empirical proof. That people act out of self-interest is viewedas common sense, and people are usually not very critical of information that theyperceive as common sense. This common-sense view was recently expressed by anexperienced consultant in the area of green campaigning:

An accurate basic assumption might be that most people are essentially selfish,

which is a natural human reaction and indeed a natural evolutionary process forany animal. Quality of life for oneself and ones dependants [sic] is always a keydriving force for anyone. Any benefits from environmental behaviour, and thereshould be benefits from every environmental behaviour, must be tangible, imme-diate and specific to the person carrying out the behaviour. Benefits at the societylevel are unlikely to be a significant driver of change; benefits should be aslocalised as possible. (Hounsham, 2006, p. 139)

In addition to selfishness being perceived as the default explanation for human

behavior, the marginalization of true prosocial behavior is facilitated by the neoclassi-cal model of the rational decision maker having become a normative ideal, at least inthe Western, industrialized world, representing the correct, educated, competent way ofmaking decisions. Results that confirm common sense as well as the normative ideal of

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1054 American Behavioral Scientist55(8)

decision making are likely to receive less critical scrutiny in empirical research thanresults suggesting that people act in a prosocial way for moral or ethical reasonsaninstance of the well-known confirmation bias (Nickerson, 1998). This is true even

among noneconomists and scholars who do not consider themselves proponents of theneoclassical paradigm.An alternative to the neoclassical view is that there can be both selfish and unself-

ish reasons for acting in a prosocial way, such as buying green consumer products(e.g., Rohrschneider, 1988; Stern, Dietz, & Kalof, 1993). For example, organic foodproducts are produced in a way that reduces harm to the environment and respects thewelfare of farm animals. This is what basically distinguishes them from conventionalfood products. Good taste and healthiness is something organic food shares with otherfood products. Hence, it seems plausible that consumers buy organic food products at

least partly for ethical reasons. But why do selfish reasons then seem to be muchmore important for consumer choices, according to much empirical research?It is suggested here that rather than reflecting consumer motives for proenvironmen-

tal behavior, these findings reflect participants attempts to relieve an uneasiness thatthey feel by postrationalizing their behavior. This uneasiness stems from knowing thatone has paid a premium price, or borne other substantial costs, for a contribution to aworthy cause while knowing that it is uncertain whether the contribution has any effecton the cause. As will be elaborated in the following, consumers attempts to cope withthis uneasiness can explain biased self-reports in the direction of emphasizing selfish

reasons and de-emphasizing unselfish reasons for this behavior.In the following, the arguments for this alternative interpretation of the data onmotives for proenvironmental behavior are unfolded and empirical evidence to supportthem presented. Using organic food products as the example, evidence will be presentedthat strongly suggests that consumers adjust their beliefs about private benefits of buyinggreen products in a favorable direction after the fact, that is, as a consequence (ratherthan an antecedent) of buying these products. Furthermore, a survey-based method forcutting through the veil of consumer self-deception and assessing the true nature of theirbasic motives for purchasing green products (i.e., for selfish reasons or the common

good) is demonstrated.

The Argument

Most of the evidence backing the claim that buying green products is (primarily) moti-vated by self-interest is responses either to questionnaire items describing possible beliefs about the consequences of performing this behavior (e.g., Magnusson et al.,2003; McEachern & McClean, 2002) or to open questions probing into why particularproduct attributes are important to the individual (e.g., Baker et al., 2004; Fotopoulos

et al., 2003; Makatouni, 2002; Zanoli & Naspetti, 2002). The most important reasonsfor buying green organic food products, according to the cited studies, are private ben-efits, such as health or better taste. The validity of responses emphasizing these benefitsare questioned by the facts, however:



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1. There is little scientific evidence backing health claims regarding organic food(Williams, 2002), and therefore, such claims are rarely made in ads or otherpromotional material.

2. Organic foods usually do not fare particularly well in blind tastes (Bourn &Prescott, 2002; Lawlor, Sheehan, Delahunty, Kerry, & Morrissey, 2003;Scholderer, Nielsen, Bredahl, Claud-Magnussen, & Lindahl, 2004).1

Hence, it seems that (some) consumers favorable beliefs about these private benefitsmust be derived from something other than hard facts or personal experiences.

There is plenty of empirical evidence documenting that individuals have a strongtendency to selectively attend to, scrutinize, and process information in a way thatbolsters their previously formed attitudes and justifies past behaviors (Abelson, 1959;

Aronson, 1969; Jain & Maheswaran, 2000; Kunda, 1990; Lord, Ross, & Lepper,1979). Among the different theories that have been suggested to account for impactsof past behavior and attitudes on a persons beliefs about an object, the most com-prehensive and well documented is Festingers (1957) cognitive dissonance theory(cf. Kunda, 1990).

According to cognitive dissonance theory, unfavorable beliefs about green consumerproducts, such as the fact that they are usually quite a bit more expensive than their con-ventional counterparts, are likely to produce an unpleasant state of arousal (i.e., cogni-tive dissonance) in consumers who buy them. Being unpleasant, cognitive dissonance

motivates consumers to make an effort to reduce it. When the source of the disso-nance is a freely chosen behavior, bolstering (Abelson, 1959; Sherman & Gorkin,1980) the attitude reflected in the behavior through selectively adding supportingbeliefs to the consumers cognitive structure or strengthening existing favorable beliefsis a common strategy (for a review of the evidence, see Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999).Hence, I suggest that consumers who have bought green products tend to bolster theircognitive structure with favorable beliefs to reduce the anxiety produced by knowingthat one has paid a premium price for the green product and/or by other unfavorableattributes of the chosen alternative.

The effectiveness of this strategy, of course, depends on how easy it is to distort real-ity. In cases such as food products, in which important attributes are either subjective(e.g., taste) or difficult to prove or disprove (e.g., healthiness), reality offers little pro-tection against motivated reasoning and bolstering.

In principle, beliefs about both private and societal consequences can be used tobolster previous attitudes and behaviors. However, there is reason to expect that whenthe discomfort is produced by knowing that one has paid a premium price for a greenproduct, consumers are especially inclined to bolster their cognitive structure withbeliefs about private benefits.

According to Aronsons (1999) revision of cognitive dissonance theory, cognitivedissonance is produced not by just any inconsistency but only if the inconsistencythreatens important aspects of ones self-concept, such as being a competent, reliable,and moral person. In such cases, cognitive dissonance motivates an effort specifically



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targeted at restoring the threatened aspects of the self-concept. In the case of payinga premium price for a green product, what is threatened is the ability to view oneselfas competent and rational rather than as a fool (cf. Kunda, 1990), whereas the ability

to view oneself as moral and idealistic is hardly at risk.If buying a green product leads to important private benefits, it could be prudent todo so, even at a premium price. Hence, convincing oneself that, say, organic food isindeed healthy and tasty is a possible strategy for the organic consumer to reduce thethreat to his or her self-concept as a competent person that arises from knowing thatone paid the premium price.

Hypotheses

The presented arguments are sufficient to demonstrate that consumers self-reportsindicating that they primarily buy green products (including organic food) for selfishreasons should not be accepted at face value. The next step is to develop and testhypotheses regarding the alternative interpretation.

From the theory and research reviewed in the former section, it follows that consum-ers who have bought a green product at a premium price are inclined to justify theirbehavior by distorting their beliefs about consequences of doing so. It also follows thatconsumers will be most successful distorting beliefs about intangible product charac-teristics, for which there is no easy reality check. From this, I derive the following

hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: After buying a green product, consumers distort their beliefs aboutconsequences of doing so in a favorable direction in an attempt to justify theirbehavior and protect a favorable self-concept. The distortion of beliefs willbe most pronounced for intangible consequences, for which there is no easyreality check.

Green products are defined by being better for the environment. It is an important

assumption behind the alternative explanation that this may actually be the (unselfish)reason consumers buy, or at least start to buy, these products. However, because of theway consumers cope with the cognitive dissonance they experience after having boughtgreen products, researchers need to cut through a veil of post-rationalizations andself-deception to reveal their true motives. The procedure proposed here for reveal-ing consumers true motives is to investigate the relationships between the behaviorand the individuals most stable life goals or values.

Research on basic human values defines these as desirable, transsituational goals,varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in peoples lives (Schwartz

et al., 2001, p. 521). During the past two decades, Shalom Schwartz and his col-leagues have carried out an impressive research project that has identified a compre-hensive and cross-culturally valid set of basic human values and have developedseveral comprehensive instruments for measuring them (e.g., Schwartz, 1992, 1994, 2005;



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Schwartz et al., 2001). Because of their content, stability, and comprehensiveness,Schwartzs value instruments are useful for the present purpose.

Schwartzs instruments aim to capture the full range of values identified by value

research worldwide. All value items are formulated as abstract desirable goals that aperson might strive for, and there is no reference to specific behaviors (such as buyinggreen products or organic food products) in any of the items. Hence, when respondedto individually and anonymously, apart from random measurement error and possiblevariations in the use of the scale, there is no reason to expect that responses shouldreflect something other than the individuals own goals and standards of judgment, thatis, his or her true value priorities.

A persons basic value priorities are rarely influenced by situation-specific events,such as whether or not he or she has bought particular green products. On the other

hand, they have been shown to guide behavior in a broad sense (e.g., Bardi & Schwartz,2003; Schwartz, 1996), including proenvironmental behavior (Thgersen & lander,2002). For example, a person for whom the attainment of hedonic pleasure is a highlyprioritized life goal should be more likely than people with different priorities to attendto, and to buy, products that afford hedonic pleasures. A person whose value prioritiesemphasize personal and general security should be more likely to attend to, and to buy,products affording security from health threats, and so on.

Hence, one can answer the question whether buying green products is related to self-ish or to unselfish life goals or values by means of Schwartzs value instruments.

If consumers primarily buy these products for selfish reasons, people whose value pri-orities emphasize relevant selfish goals should be more likely to buy the green prod-ucts than people who give lower priority to these goals as guiding principles in theirlife. For example, if people buy a particular type of green product for status reasons,status-oriented people should be more inclined to buy the products than other peo-ple, everything else being equal. Status-oriented people give relatively high priorityto the value types that Schwartz (1992, 1994, 2005; Schwartz et al., 2001) termsachievement and power. If consumers primarily buy, say, organic food productsfor taste or health reasons, more hedonistic or risk-averse consumers, respectively,

should be particularly inclined to buy the product, everything else being equal. Hence,in the latter cases, buying organic food should correlate positively with values in themotivational domains hedonism and security.

Actually, extant research does not support the existence of a positive relationshipbetween selfish values and proenvironmental behavior. On the contrary, several studieshave reported a positive relationship between environmentally responsible behaviors andthe unselfish life goals reflected in the value domain that Schwartz terms universalism(e.g., Karp, 1996; Stern & Dietz, 1994; Thgersen & lander, 2002). Schwartz (1994)defines universalism as understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the

welfare ofallpeople and for nature (p. 22; emphasis in original). Hence, universalismcaptures concern for the welfare of anonymous others, including future generations,and for nature, including farm animals. In other words, universalism captures concernfor the common good. A strong relationship between universalism and buying green



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products is consistent with the proposition that consumers basically buy, or at least startedto buy, green products because they are environment friendly, that is, for unselfishreasons. Hence, the second hypothesis to be tested is as follows:

Hypothesis 2: The purchase of a green product is linked to the strength of apersons unselfish, rather than to his or her selfish, life goals (values).

The Study

In this study, consumers post-rationalization (bolstering) and the value basis for theirpurchase are investigated with regard to organic food products. Organic food waschosen as the case because this product category was created as a response to concerns

about environmental and other problems created by modern, intensive agriculture andbecause it is a relatively large and rapidly growing green product category in manycountries in Europe and North America (Willer, Yussefi-Menzler, & Sorensen, 2008).National certification schemes for organic food production require production meth-ods that are less harmful to the environment and more concerned with animal welfarethan conventional methods.

To increase the generality of the findings, data from four (western European) coun-tries are analyzed: Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy. This sample ofcountries spans from north to south in Europe and represent four different language

areas and also four different food cultures (Askegaard & Madsen, 1998). To the extentthat results are indeed cross-nationally valid, we can discard the possibility that theycan be attributed to country-specific cultural or structural idiosyncrasies.

Method

Survey data collected in four western European countries are used for the study. Thequestionnaire contained belief items; a measure of buying frequency for organic foodas a product category; items asking how long the person had bought organic food, if

at all; and questions about basic human values. It also contained questions not usedfor the present study. The questionnaire was developed in English and translated intothe language of each country. To check the validity of the translations, questionnaireswere back-translated into English.

Participants

In each of the countries, approximately 1,000 respondents completed questionnairesdistributed by a professional market research company. The research population con-

sisted of individuals at least 18 years old in charge of or who shared the responsibilityfor the households grocery shopping. If the responsibility was shared, the person withthe next birthday was asked to complete the questionnaire. Apart from the requirementto deliver a representative sample, the specific recruitment procedure was left to the



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Thgersen 1059

market research company and hence differed between countries (random in some,stratified random in other countries).2 Printed questionnaires were delivered to eachrespondent either by mail with a prepaid return envelope or by hand, in which case itwas collected when the respondent had completed the questionnaire. A demographic

profile of each country sample is shown in Table 1.

Testing Hypothesis 1

Variables

Buying experience with regard to organic food was measured by the following item:

If you buy organic foods, please estimate for how many months or years you

have been buying them. (1) Less than 3 months, (2) 3-6 months, (3) less than ayear, but more than 6 months, (4) 1-2 years, (5) 3-5 years, (6) more than 5 years.

Nonbuyers were coded as 0. The means and standard deviations for buying experiencein the four countries are reported in Table 2. For the hypothesis test, the experience

Table 1. Demographic Profiles by Country (in percentages)

Italy Denmark United Kingdom Germany

GenderMale 43.7 24.9 23.6 48.3

Female 56.3 75.1 76.4 51.7

Total 100 100 100 100

Age group

18-30 19.8 9.9 21.4 21.4

31-45 38.9 33.0 33.7 28.9

46-65 35.8 41.6 35.3 33.1

>65 5.5 15.5 9.6 16.6

Total 100 100 100 100

City area

>500,000 44.5 8.6 15.3 14.7

100,000-499,999 34.6 10.7 30.0 18.8

10,000-99,999 15.6 46.2 44.7 37.6


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scale was reduced to three points: 1 = not buying organic food (no experience), 2 =bought organic food up to 6 months (short experience), or 3 = bought organic foodmore than 6 months (long experience).

As recommended by Ajzen and Fishbein (1980), we used an open-ended question-naire format to achieve a list of the populations modal beliefs about the consequencesof buying organic food. The nine most frequently mentioned beliefs were included in

the questionnaire, and participants were asked to rate them on a 7-point scale with theendpoints extremely unlikely (1) and extremely likely (7). The list included tangiblesearch attributes, such as the price and the appearance of the products, and intangiblecredence attributes, such as environmental friendliness and health (Darby & Karni,1973). Because beliefs such as these are probably held at the level of a specific product,the belief items referred specifically to organic tomatoes in a random half of the sampleand organic tomato sauce in the other half. Because organic tomato sauce is an uncom-mon product in most of the countries, which makes consumer responses more hypo-thetical in this case, only the results regarding fresh tomatoes are used for the present

purpose. Item formulations, means, and standard deviations by country and buyingexperience are reported in Table 3. The country differences in beliefs are not importantfor the present discussion and are therefore not commented on any further, except whenthey interact with the experience effect.

Results

Hypothesis 1 stated that after buying a green product, consumers tend to distort theirbeliefs about consequences of doing so in a favorable direction, justifying their behav-

ior. It was added that this tendency to postrationalize is especially pronounced forintangible product attributes, for which there is no easy reality check. This hypothesiswas tested by means of MANOVA of the relationship between beliefs about the con-sequences of buying organic tomatoes and buying experience, using the GLM (gener-alized linear model) module of SPSS 16. Country of residence was also controlled.

Table 2. Organic Buying Behavior and Organic Buying Experience by Country

Buying behavioraLength of

experienceb

N M SD M SD

Denmark 1,086 3.95 1.293 4.06 1.994

United Kingdom 999 2.92 1.352 2.41 2.091

Germany 1,008 3.23 1.308 3.50 2.194

Italy 1,001 2.85 1.459 2.35 2.266

Total 4,094 3.25 1.424 3.11 2.257

aScale from 1 = I have never bought, nor considered buying organic foodto 6 = I buy organic foods always whenpossible.bScale from 0 = do not buy organic foodto 6 = more than 5 years.



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1061

Table3.B

eliefsAboutConsequenceso

fBuyingOrganicTomatoesb

yCountryandLengthofBuyingExperience

How

likely

isitthatorganic

tomatoes...

D

enmark

(n=555)

United

Kingdom

(n=500)

Germany

(n=505)

Italy

(n=501)

No

experience

(n=578)

Short

experience

(n=127)

Long

experience

(n=1,356)

Total

(N=2,061)

Arefreefr

om

chemicals,suchas

residuesfrom

fertilizers,pesticides

M

4.70

5.65

4.85

5.00

4.66a

5.56b

5.15c

5.04

SD

1.898

1.334

1.64

1

1.625

1.689

1.355

1.679

1.683

Aremoreexpensivethan

conventio

nalones

M

6.29

6.00

6.40

6.08

6.12

6.32

6.21

6.19

SD

.943

1.185

1.01

1

1.188

1.208

.977

1.052

1.094

Tastebette

rthanconventionalones

M

4.83

5.20

5.22

5.04

4.31a

5.23b

5.37b

5.07

SD

1.623

1.401

1.57

4

1.570

1.591

1.605

1.418

1.554

Areproducedinawaythatis

betterfortheenvironmentthan

areconve

ntionalones

M

5.89

5.55

5.60

5.49

4.90a

5.78b

5.94b

5.64

SD

1.298

1.283

1.37

1

1.411

1.532

1.308

1.135

1.349

Keepfresh

forlesstimethan

conventio

nalones

M

4.53

4.46

4.55

4.65

4.54

4.54

4.55

4.55

SD

1.667

1.543

1.65

9

1.708

1.600

1.656

1.666

1.646

(continued)



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1062

How

likely

isitthatorganic

tomatoes...

D

enmark

(n=555)

United

Kingdom

(n=500)

Germany

(n=505)

Italy

(n=501)

No

experience

(n=578)

Short

experience

(n=127)

Long

experience

(n=1,356)

Total

(N=2,061)

Arehealthierthanconventional

ones

M

5.44

5.38

5.23

5.52

4.73a

5.40b

5.68b

5.39

SD

1.444

1.350

1.55

8

1.483

1.645

1.347

1.290

1.463

Looklessattractivethan

conventio

nalones

M

3.65

3.73

4.13

4.85

4.25a

4.25

4.00b

4.08

SD

1.773

1.724

1.65

0

1.603

1.614

1.840

1.799

1.755

Aremorenaturalthan

conventio

nalones

M

5.13

5.41

5.65

5.62

4.84a

5.40b

5.71c

5.45

SD

1.577

1.398

1.33

4

1.390

1.582

1.513

1.294

1.446

Soldasorg

anicarenotreally

organic

M

3.67

3.45

4.25

4.53

4.34a

4.13

3.79b

3.97

SD

1.621

1.693

1.51

6

1.625

1.631

1.622

1.664

1.670

Note:Ona

7-pointscalewiththeendpoint

sextremelyunlikely(1)andextremelylikely(7).Post-hoctestsofdifferencesbetweenmeansareo

nlyreported

forexperiencegroups.Meansthataremarkedwithdifferentsuperscriptedlettersaresignificantlydifferent,p|.06| are significant, p < .05.



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changes in alternative indices of model fit, especially those that take model parsimonyinto account, such as the root mean square of approximation (RMSEA).

Metric invariance was tested by means of nested CFA. The analysis shows that

there is a significant difference in chi-square, 2

(30) = 168.614,p < .001, betweenthe free and the restricted (i.e., factor loadings restricted to be equal across coun-tries) model with regard to the seven value domains. A partial metric invariancemodel where only two factor loadings per latent value construct are restricted to beequal still produces a significant change in chi-square, 2(21) = 71.172, p < .001,compared to the model where only the factor loading fixed at unity to define thescale is set equal. However, with regard to universalismthe only value constructfound to add significantly to the prediction of behavior in all four countries, accord-ing to the following analysesit was possible to restrict the necessary factor load-

ings to be equal across countries without significantly reducing the model fit, 2

(3) =5.097,p = .165. Furthermore, a number of indices of model fit favor the partial metricinvariance model, such as the Tucker Lewis index (partial metric invariance, .866;free, .862). Chi-square per degree of freedom is lower in the partial metric invariance(6.567) than in the free (6.783) model, and the RMSEA is identical across the twomodels (.037). The comparative fit index slightly favors the free model (partial metricinvariance, .910; free, .912) but not when adjusted for parsimony (parsimony com-parative fix index; restricted, .614; free, .584). Hence, all in all, it seems justified toassume partial metric invariance in this case.

Table 4 reports the correlations between the motivational value types, and Table 5shows the correlations between values and the frequency of buying organic food forall four countries, given the assumption of partial metric invariance.3

The values-behavior relationship. Because of multicollinearity, it is not possible tosimultaneously include all value domains as predictors of behavior. Instead, a step-wise procedure was used to identify the values that seem to guide behavior in thisparticular case.

First, the bivariate relationships between value types and behavior were inspected(Table 5). Between two and six of the seven included value types are significantly cor-

related with buying organic food in the four countries. As in previous studies of environ-mentally responsible behavior, universalism is strongest and most consistently relatedto buying organic food, the bivariate correlation being significant in all four countries.Benevolence and achievement are significantly correlated with behavior in three coun-tries, security and hedonism in two countries, and stimulation in one country.

A closer look at the correlations in Tables 4 and 5 reveals that a lack of a signifi-cant relationship between security and behavior in some cases may be attributable tosuppression (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003). According to Cohen et al. (2003),suppression is present when either r

Y1or r

Y2is less than the product of the other with

r12 (p. 77). Security is strongly and positively correlated with universalism butweakly correlated with behavior (Y), whereas universalism is relatively strongly cor-related with behavior. Hence, because of the risk that the security-behavior correlation



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is suppressed because of the stronger influence of universalism, the contribution ofsecurity was controlled in all cases in the following.

In the next step, on a country-by-country basis, behavior was regressed on securityand on all other value domains that were significantly correlated with buying organicfood in that country, according to the analysis reported in Table 5. To conserve space,the main results of these analyses are just summarized in the text.

In all four cases, universalism is still the strongest and most consistent predictor of

buying organic food when other value types are included. However, also in all cases, anadditional value type is significant when universalism is controlled, although it plays asecondary role. In three countries, security gives a significant contribution to explainedvariance, whereas achievement does the same in the United Kingdom. The followingsignificant (standardized) regression coefficients were revealed by these SEM analyses:Germany (universalism, .694; security, .523), Denmark (universalism, .471; security,.410), Italy (universalism, .377; security, .155), United Kingdom (universalism, .239;achievement, .168). The unstandardized regression coefficients for the path from uni-versalism to behavior could be fixed to be identical across the four countries without a

significant loss of fit, 2

(3) = 1.336,p = .72.

Discussion

The signs of the regression coefficients reveal that a single value domain is actuallysufficient to account for the positive motivation to purchase organic food in the fourcountries. Buying organic food is positively related to and, hence, seems to be basi-cally motivated by universalism values (which includes concern for the natural envi-ronment, among other things). The behavioral impact of universalism is of the same

magnitude in the four countries. In none of the countries is any other value type bothsignificantly and positively related to this behavior when the influence of universal-ism is controlled. This is consistent with Hypothesis 2 and with the key differentiatingcharacteristic of organic food products: that they are produced with greater concernfor the natural environment and for animal welfare.

Table 5. Correlations Between Value Domains and Buying Organic Food

Domains Denmark Germany United Kingdom Italy Average

Beh-Sec .13 .07 .06 .03 .01Beh-Sti .02 .08 .06 .04 .05

Beh-Sd .03 .06 .02 .01 .01

Beh-Ach .04 .11 .07 .11 .08

Beh-Ben .02 .12 .07 .08 .06

Beh-Uni .19 .32 .11 .21 .21

Beh-Hed .05 .14 .05 .07 .07

Note: Uni = universalism; Ben = benevolence; Hed = hedonism; Sec = security; Sti = stimulation; Sd = self-direction; Ach = achievement; Beh = behavior. 2/df= 6.270; Tucker Lewis index = .860; comparative fit

index = .907; root mean square error of approximation = .036. Correlations >|.06| are significant, p < .05.



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In all four countries, other value priorities seem to increase consumers propensityto reject organic food, however. Consumers in the United Kingdom for whomachievement is an important guiding principle in life are particularly unlikely to buy

organic food. The basic goal expressed in achievement values is personal successthrough demonstrating competence according to social standards (Schwartz et al.,2001, p. 521). Hence, this finding is the opposite of what one would expect if statusseeking (showing off) were an important motive for buying organic food.

Furthermore, in three of the four countries, organic food tends to be rejected bypeople who strongly value security as a guiding principle in their lives. In two of thethree countries, the negative effect of security is revealed only when controlling foruniversalism, because it is suppressed at the bivariate level. Importantly, this findingis the opposite of what one would expect if the basic purchasing motive was (selfish)

health concerns. The basic goal expressed in security values is safety, harmony, andstability of society, of relationships, and of self (Schwartz et al., 2001, p. 521). Onewould definitely expect people for whom security is an important guiding principle inlife to be more sensitive than others to the healthiness of food. Hence, if the main rea-son for buying organic food is that it is believed to be healthy, such consumers shouldbe expected to buy more organic food than others, but they do not. On the contrary, thesecurity-behavior relationship is negative in all countries where it is significant. Thisapparent contradiction is solved by the proposition, put forward in this article, that astrong belief in the healthiness of organic food is a consequence rather than an ante-

cedent of buying organic food.Still, consumer post-rationalization does not explain why the security-behaviorrelationship is negative rather than just nonsignificant. A possible explanation could bethat because being organic is a credence characteristic (Bech-Larsen & Grunert, 2001),buying organic food products involves a risk of being cheated. It seems likely thatpeople who strongly emphasize security as a guiding principle in their lives are moresensitive to such risks than other people.

General Discussion

This article challenges the tendency in empirical research to accept findings that areconsistent with the neoclassical view of a selfish, rational decision maker at facevalue and, specifically, the frequent claim that consumers buy green products, such asorganic food, mainly for selfish reasons (e.g., health, better taste). It is suggested thatconsumer self-reports of selfish reasons for this behavior are often inflated because ofa desire to protect a self-image as a competent and rational person. This kind of moti-vated reasoning is predicted, for instance, by cognitive dissonance theory and in par-ticular by Aronsons (1999) self-concept revision of the theory. Since it is especially

the persons self-concept as a competent and rational person that is threatened by theact of buying green products, consumers who do so are especially prone to bolsterweakly founded beliefs about private benefits, such as that organic food is healthy andtasty. Hence, it is argued, most green consumers started to buy these products primarilybecause they were persuaded by their documented benefits for the environment, that



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is, for unselfish reasons, but subsequent concerns for protecting (and perhaps projecting)a smart and rational self-image made them inflate possible selfish reasons when askedto report why they buy green products, such as organic food.

From a methodological point of view, the discussed bolstering processes lead peopleto report an idealized picture of themselves in interviews and surveys (e.g., Nancarrow& Brace, 2000). Biased self-reports have been attributed to two types of response bias:impression management and self-deceptive enhancement (Lalwani, Shrum, & Chiu,2009). Impression management is the tendency to present ones actions in the mostpositive manner to control the social images that one projects, whereas self-deceptiveenhancement is a tendency to provide inflated, yet honestly held, self-descriptions.Lalwani et al. (2009) argue that people in individualist cultures have a stronger ten-dency to self-deception, and people in collectivist cultures a stronger tendency to

impression management, than the reverse. If this is true, self-deceptive enhancementshould be a more serious threat to the validity of empirical research than impressionmanagement in a western European context, although both may contribute to the over-all amount of biased responding. What is discussed here may be viewed as a specialcase of self-deceptive enhancement.

Notice that it is notclaimed that health, taste, and other private consequences ofbuying organic food are without importance for consumers. Everybody wants food tobe healthy and tasty, and not many will repeat buying organic food that tastes bad.Also, just as bad experiences threaten this behavior with extinction, experienced pri-

vate benefits undoubtedly reinforce it. However, consumers are generally well awarethat health and taste benefits are uncertain. Hence, for most consumers, such beliefsare too weak to make them start buying organic food at a premium price. Instead, whatmakes them decide to do so are the (documented) benefits to society and the environ-ment. However, when they have paid a premium for organic or other green products,consumers are motivated to interpret ambiguous information in a way that bolsterstheir decision to do so, which means that beliefs about private benefits are strength-ened. Since strong beliefs about private benefits are a consequence of behavior, theyare also correlated with behavior.

Survey data from four European countries corroborate the suggested interpretationof the evidence. Consumers who have bought organic food products generally holdmore favorable beliefs about positive consequences of doing so but only if the realitycheck is difficult. Also, the pattern of the relationships between beliefs and length ofbuying experience is more consistent with belief strength following from rather thanbeing an antecedent of behavior. Hence, there is evidence of motivated reasoningjustifying a previously performed green behavior by bolstering beliefs that are consis-tent with that behavior.

Given the many and varied ways people defend their self-concept, only one of which

has been elaborated here, unobtrusive and indirect methods may often be better thandirect questioning at uncovering the true goals and motives guiding self-relevantbehaviors. In this study, the applied method is to investigate how the purchase oforganic food relates to the individual consumers stable value priorities as measured



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by a comprehensive instrument, such as the ones developed by Schwartz (1992, 1994,2005; Schwartz et al., 2001).

There is no indication in this large data set that the preference for organic food is

linked to selfish values. On the contrary, buying organic food is consistently andpositively related to how strongly the consumer prioritizes universalism values. Thedominating, and positive, influence of universalism values on buying organic foodproducts is consistent with the findings of previous research on proenvironmental behavior (e.g., Karp, 1996; Schwartz, 2005; Thgersen & lander, 2002), and itstrongly suggests that consumers derive the self-relevance of buying organic food pri-marily from its being considered a prosocial, proenvironmental behavior. By choosingorganic food, consumers express their ethical values and their concern for the com-mon good.

The findings of this study contradict the neoclassical model of the rational decisionmaker. However, the findings are good news for environmental policy makers as wellas for businesses catering to green consumers. They strongly suggest that many con-sumers are not just driven by selfishness but are intrinsically motivated to contribute tosolving environmental problems, such as those associated with modern, industrializedagriculture, and that they can be relied on to act on this motivation if they are offeredthe opportunity to do so. And they suggest that the organic products business needs notcut corners to promote products to consumers. In themselves, the documented envi-ronmental and ethical benefits of green products are strong selling points to large

consumer segments.Furthermore, the findings suggest that producers and retailers should focus most oftheir marketing effort to persuade new customers to start buying the green products.When they have started, consumers seem to persuade themselves to continue buyingby interpreting ambiguous reenforcers in the most positive way possible.

In one of the four countries, the positive relationship between universalism andbehavior is seconded by a negative relationship between achievement and behavior.Hence, in the United Kingdom, but not in the other countries, the more consumersstrive for personal success through demonstrating competence, the less likely it is that

they buy organic food. This may suggest that in the United Kingdom, more than inother countries, a conflict is perceived between following ones own achievementgoals and caring for the environment. It is left to future research to investigate whetherthis is true or not.

A negative relationship between security and behavior was found in three of thefour countries. Hence, this relationship seems to reflect a more general characteristicof the organic food market. It was proposed earlier that this finding reflects the factthat buying organic food products involves a risk of being cheated. If this interpretationis true, it emphasizes the importance of independent certification, labeling, and control

systems for the marketing of green products. Extant research contains plenty of evi-dence supporting this proposition (e.g., Thgersen, 2002).Despite the apparent value conflict in some countries, the pattern of correlations

found between basic human values and the purchase of organic food is consistent with



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this behaviors being fundamentally guided by unselfish motives. The findings regard-ing other values are only a corollary.

Our ability to generalize the conclusions from this study is limited by the fact that all

of the analyzed countries were from western Europe. That said, the analyzed group ofcountries is quite diverse with regard to national food cultures (Askegaard & Madsen,1998) and, not least, organic food consumption (Table 2). Hence, although caution iswarranted when generalizing results to non-Western cultures, the main findings cannotbe reduced to a national idiosyncrasy: (a) Consumers change their beliefs about organicfood products in a favorable direction after having bought them, and (b) the purchase oforganic food is basically guided by unselfish and not by selfish values.

Acknowledgments

The empirical data reported in this article was collected in the CONDOR project,which was carried out with financial support of the European Communities under the5th Framework Programme, project no. QLK1-2002-02446. For more information,visit http://www.condororganic.org/.

Notes

1. For instance, the weekly consumer magazine inserted in Denmarks largest broadsheet

newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, usually publishes a (nonscientific) blind taste test of a food

product. In 2005, 43 such tests were published, of which 19 included at least one organic

variant of the tested product. In 8 (i.e., fewer than half) of these tests was an organic vari-ant selected as the best tasting or at least as a tied first. (The organic variant was the most

expensive in 14 of the tests.)

2. Because the countries differ quite a lot in size and in the availability of appropriate national

registers that can be used for sampling, there is no universal best procedure for drawing

a national representative sample. Hence, we judged that a national professional market

research company possessed the best expertise for deciding the optimal sampling procedure

for each country.

3. To conserve space, the tables report only correlations between latent factors and the most

important fit indices. The rest of the AMOS output can be acquired from the author.

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Bio

John Thgersen is Professor of Economic Psychology at Aarhus University, Business andSocial Sciences. His current research includes projects on social norms in the environmental

field, promoting energy conservation in households, consumer acceptance of organic food

products in China, Brazil and Europe, and intergenerational transfer of environmental concern.

He has published extensively on consumption issues in journals such as Journal of Economic

Psychology, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Psychology & Marketing,

European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Environmental Psychology, and Basic and Applied

Social Psychology. John Thgersen is editor of Journal of Consumer Policy, published by

Springer. He is program director at Aarhus University for EURECA, a European Master of

Consumer Affairs.

american behavioral scientist

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