The physical environment matters: room effects on online purchase decisions

Introduction: People as individual consumers are regularly targeted in sustainability campaigns or communications with the hope of enhancing sustainable behavior at an individual level, with subsequent sustainability transformation at a larger societal scale. However, psychological motivation is complex and campaigns need to be based on an understanding for what individual, and contextual, factors support or hinder sustainable behavioral choices.

Methods: In a discrete choice experiment, participants made hypothetical online purchases in each of three rooms designed to evoke associations to hedonic, gain, and normative goal frames. Participants were shown a campaign message intended to prime sustainable textile consumption prior to the purchase. For each product (t-shirt or bananas) hedonic (comfort/look), gain (price), and normative (organic/ fairtrade) attributes were varied in an online choice experiment.

Results: Preferences for the normative attribute of t-shirts increased in the normative room compared to the room with gain associations. No effect of the rooms with hedonic or gain priming was observed on the choice.

Discussion: The study supports the hypothesis that the physical room can enhance goal frame activation and behavioral choice but concludes that such priming effect is sensitive to specificity of the prime.