Activating Persistence-Licensing Response Measure in Sustainable Consumptions
(A2024-119307)

AUTHORS

Ngoc Nguyen, University of Lincoln; Louise Hassan, University of Birmingham; Edward Shiu, Bangor University

ABSTRACT

Self-control has been well-documented that it drives adaptive behaviors in social sciences. Whereas contexts under previous self-control investigations aim at maximizing consumers’ personal benefits (e.g., eating, exercising), pro-environmental sustainable consumptions require consumers forgoing their personal immediate desire for longer-term positive benefits yet external to self. Despite this little is known about the effect of self-control in sustainable actions, triggers to activate self-control efforts in this domain are unexplored. The Persistence-Licensing Response Measure (PLRM) has been recently developed as an individual self-control trait, yet activated by the perception of subgoal success, to predict Persistence-Licensing intentions. By three experimental studies, this paper first evaluates the PLRM’s usefulness in the sustainable consumption context; then, it extends the original framework by examining the role of self-control conflict experience as an additional pre-condition for the PLRM operation. This work provides important sustainable marketing practices based on self-control strategies.