Targeted Nudging: Leveraging Gender Differences to Enhance Sustainable Purchase Behavior
(A2025-126189)

AUTHORS

Lukas Miedzinski, University of Mannheim; Sabine Kuester, University of Mannheim

ABSTRACT

Individual purchase behavior plays a crucial role in advancing sustainability efforts. Behavioral interventions, such as nudges, have shown promise in promoting sustainable consumer behavior. However, the effectiveness of nudges is often undermined by a "one-size-fits-all" approach that disregards individual differences in susceptibility to nudging and even risks producing unintended backfire effects. This study investigates a tailored nudge strategy that considers consumers’ variability to enhance overall impact. Using an online experiment, we demonstrate that male and female participants exhibit distinct responses to System 1 (intuitive) and System 2 (analytical) nudges, revealing gender-specific differences in decision-making processes regarding sustainability choices. Importantly, our findings show that tailoring nudges to these gender-based differences significantly enhances sustainable purchase behavior, whereas generic, non-targeted nudges fail to achieve comparable outcomes.