BEING GREEN IS A MATTER OF IMPLICIT ATTITUDES AND MIND-SET. AN APPLICATION OF IMPLICIT ASSOCIATION TEST AND CONSTRUAL LEVEL THEORY ON SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION.

Encouraging sustainable consumer behaviour is a growing topic of interest in the marketing literature (Karmarkar & Bollinger 2015) and has been identified as one of the more pressing research topics (Mick 2006). In addition, consumers are increasingly demanding more environmentally friendly packaging in terms of reduced packaging, or packaging which can be recycled or reused (Magnier & Schoormans 2015) and research into consumer attitudes on new packaging indicate that consumers now expect all packages to be environmentally friendly (Olsen, Slotegraaf & Chandukala 2014). However, extant literature on this topic remains scarce. This thesis adds to knowledge by shedding light on self-reported (i.e., explicit) and automatic (i.e., implicit) evaluations that may encourage/inhibit consumers’ adoption of eco-friendly packaging choices. According to recent academic research on sustainable consumption, this thesis adopts the theoretical lenses of Construal Level Theory, contributing with important insights into the effects of different mental representation and the effectiveness of different message appeals in motivating consumers to engage in sustainable consumption choices. Recent academic research has demonstrated that the “fit” (or lack thereof) between communication frames and consumer’s construal level mind-set can be an alternative explanation for the success or failure of environmental behaviour adoptions (White et al. 2011; Tangari et al. 2015; Ramirez et al. 2015).