Encouraging ecological behaviour through induced hypocrisy and inconsistency

Daniel Priolo (1) , Isabelle Milhabet (2) , Olivier Codou (3) , Valérie Fointiat (4) , Emmanuelle Lebarbenchon (5) , Fabrice Gabarrot (6)

1 EPSYLON - Dynamique des capacités humaines et des conduites de santé
2 LAPCOS - Laboratoire d'Anthropologie et de Psychologie Cliniques, Cognitives et Sociales
3 UNIROUEN - Université de Rouen Normandie
4 LPS - Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale
5 LIP-PC2S - Laboratoire Inter-universitaire de Psychologie : Personnalité, Cognition, Changement Social
6 SPMS - Laboratoire de Socio-Psychologie et Management du Sport

Remembering one’s past transgressions of a social norm is known as an effective paradigm for enhancing pro-social and ecological behaviours. Our study aimed to show that reminding one’s norm transgressions can arise cognitive dissonance and can lead to behavioural change as induced hypocrisy does. In particular, we tested whether inconsistency between the self-concept and the remembered past transgressions is or is not likely to encourage behavioural change. To reach this goal, we conducted an experiment comparing induced hypocrisy, injunctive inconsistency and descriptive inconsistency with five comparison conditions. The results showed that, as observed with the induced hypocrisy paradigm, presenting a salient injunctive norm and its past transgressions enhances psychological discomfort, actual donation and donation amounts for an ecological association. The discussion addresses applied perspectives and theoretical implications.

Mots clés: Social norms Hypocrisy Ecological behaviour Cognitive dissonance

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Daniel Priolo, Isabelle Milhabet, Olivier Codou, Valérie Fointiat, Emmanuelle Lebarbenchon, et al.. Encouraging ecological behaviour through induced hypocrisy and inconsistency. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2016, 47, pp.166-180. ⟨10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.06.001⟩. ⟨hal-04296032⟩