John Thøgersen

This paper examines how individuals' responses to descriptive (what most others do) and injunctive (what others believe people should do) pro‐environmental appeals depend on their value orientations. Across two studies using representative samples (United States: recycling electronic waste; United Kingdom: recycling single‐use batteries), the findings show that pro‐environmental appeals influence behavioral intentions through psychological reactance when individuals' value priorities conflict with the appeal. Descriptive normative appeals evoke less psychological reactance than injunctive normative appeals. However, reactance consistently emerges among individuals with stronger egoistic values (in both countries) and among those with weaker altruistic values (United States) or weaker biospheric values (United Kingdom). These findings advance research on normative appeals by clarifying when such messages are effective and when they backfire. Specifically, the study demonstrates that value orientations moderate the effectiveness of descriptive and injunctive normative appeals and provides novel evidence of the role of psychological reactance in shaping pro‐environmental behavioral intentions.

Policymakers seeking to limit climate change have many policy options to choose from, but in general, those popular with the public will be easier to enact and sustain. What then makes policies more or less popular? We propose that perceptions of policies’ consequences shape their relative popularity, and those perceptions are widely shared. We tested this theory in a study of 54 climate policies across 75 societies in all world regions (n = 14,053). Societies differ in overall support, yet they show close agreement about policies’ consequences, most importantly whether they are effective, fair, and low-cost. Together these perceived consequences predict which policies are globally popular (predictive R2 = 0.78 in leave-one-out cross-validation). An embedded experiment supports a causal interpretation: expert statements shift support to the extent that they shift perceived consequences. The experiment also reveals a communication dilemma: negative statements about consequences reduce support everywhere, whereas positive statements backfire in societies where institutional quality is low.

The last five years of research on sustainability labelling, reported in 175 journal articles, documents its effectiveness in increasing consumer choices of more sustainable food products. Some sustainability labels come out as stronger than others and their impact varies across products, countries, and individual consumers, depending on label characteristics, knowledge, familiarity, and perceived issue importance. When combining multiple labels, each of them usually has a positive effect on choices, but their marginal effects are lower than if the label is used alone. Many consumers lack sufficient knowledge about certification requirements and benefits of labelled products, which leads to confusion and vulnerability to ‘greenwashing’ attempts. Also, high societal focus on one sustainability topic can divert limited attention away from other important topics. Hence, it is important for businesses to exercise restraint regarding uncertified claims and for policy to connect and balance sustainability issues and facilitate consumers' mental connections between certified sustainability labels.

Consumer uptake of organic food is shaped by both personal values and the way choices are structured in the retail environment. Unlike prior research, we here investigate how elements of supermarket choice architecture influence organic choices. Using an incentive‐compatible online supermarket experiment across four countries, we examine the impacts on consumer choices of organic product availability and assortment as well as competing quality and sustainability cues. We find that greater availability and a broader assortment of organic options boost organic purchases. Competing quality cues, like branding, social norm nudges and other sustainability labels on conventional products divert attention away from organic alternatives and ultimately reduce organic purchases. These results highlight the need for careful alignment of sustainability messaging and other choice architecture elements in retail strategy. To strengthen organic markets, retailers and policymakers should prioritise a broad, consistent, well‐curated organic assortment and harmonise competing labels that vie for limited consumer attention.

If one pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) influences subsequent behaviours, this spillover effect holds significant implications for environmental policies. This paper systematically examines the psychological mechanisms underpinning PEB spillover by testing a comprehensive set of mediators within the same empirical framework. Studies were conducted in Norway ( N = 1,574) and Germany ( N = 1,938), using correlational and experimental designs. The studies did not detect any significant spillover effects. However, correlational patterns of PEB were detected, revealing consistency between prior behaviours and policy support on the one hand and intentions to engage in other PEBs and supporting other policies on the other hand. Among a comprehensive set of mediators tested, environmental concern, pro-environmental self-identity, and global warming worry were identified as significant. Experimental interventions had limited effects on the initial behaviour. We recommend longitudinal studies to better capture the dynamics of behavioural change over time and preregistration protocols to address biases in research.

In most countries of the world, the diffusion of battery electric vehicles (EVs) is still limited to ”innovators.” Only in Norway have EVs been so widely adopted that they have reached the ”early majority” (i.e., more than 16% of the car stock). To learn what others can do to follow the front-runner, the current paper reports a study of drivers and barriers of EV adoption in Norway based on a yearly, representative rolling panel survey from 2018 to 2023, interviewing more than 4000 residents per year. In Norway, the transformation to electric mobility was initiated by an ambitious demand-side policy. In this context, supportive social norms were important drivers of EV adoption, amplified by self-reinforcing feedback loops, as suggested by innovation diffusion theory and research on ”social tipping.” Social norms nudging may hence be a tool to speed up the diffusion of EVs, complementing financial and infrastructure measures.

Every social situation that people encounter in their daily lives comes with a set of unwritten rules about what behavior is considered appropriate or inappropriate. These everyday norms can vary across societies: some societies may have more permissive norms in general or for certain behaviors, or for certain behaviors in specific situations. In a preregistered survey of 25,422 participants across 90 societies, we map societal differences in 150 everyday norms and show that they can be explained by how societies prioritize individualizing moral foundations such as care and liberty versus binding moral foundations such as purity. Specifically, societies with more individualistic morality tend to have more permissive norms in general (greater liberty) and especially for behaviors deemed vulgar (less purity), but they exhibit less permissive norms for behaviors perceived to have negative consequences in specific situations (greater care). By comparing our data with available data collected twenty years ago, we find a global pattern of change toward more permissive norms overall but less permissive norms for the most vulgar and inconsiderate behaviors. This study explains how social norms vary across behaviors, situations, societies, and time.