Notes on Kidwell et al (2013) – Getting Liberals and Conservatives to Go Green

Paper: “Getting Liberals and Conservatives to Go Green: Political Ideology and Congruent Appeals,” Journal of Consumer Research, 40 (2), 350–67.

Main Topic or Phenomenon

This paper addresses how political ideology influences the effectiveness of persuasive appeals for sustainable behaviors, specifically recycling. The central phenomenon is the congruence effect between consumers’ political ideological orientations and the moral foundations embedded in environmental messaging.

Theoretical Construct

The paper builds on Moral Foundations Theory, which posits that political ideologies are grounded in different moral foundations:

• Binding Moral Foundation: Emphasizes in-group loyalty, authority, and purity. Conservatives prioritize group cohesion, duty, self-control, and adherence to social norms of their in-group.
• Individualizing Moral Foundation: Focuses on caring and fairness based on individual rights and welfare. Liberals emphasize protecting individuals from harm and ensuring equitable treatment.
• Fluency: Defined as the subjective ease of processing information that creates a “feels right” experience. When appeals match moral foundations, they generate processing fluency that enhances persuasiveness.
• Political Ideology: The set of attitudes containing cognitive, affective, and motivational components that explain how society should function to achieve social justice and social order.

Key Findings

1. Congruence Effect: Persuasive appeals congruent with consumers’ underlying moral foundations significantly increase sustainable intentions and behaviors. Liberals respond better to individualizing appeals, while conservatives respond better to binding appeals.
2. Fluency as Mediator: The relationship between ideological congruence and sustainable behavior is mediated by processing fluency. Congruent messages feel “right” and are easier to process.
3. Spillover Effects: Enhanced recycling intentions from congruent appeals spill over to other sustainable behaviors including acquisition (purchasing CFLs) and usage (water conservation) behaviors.
4. Field Validation: A 14-week longitudinal field study with 113 households demonstrated that congruent appeals increase actual recycling behavior, not just intentions.
5. Alternative Explanations Ruled Out: The effects are driven by fluency rather than involvement, recycling efficacy, guilt, or perceived environmental benefits.

Boundary Conditions and Moderators

• Political Ideology Strength: The effects are strongest for individuals with clear liberal or conservative orientations. The paper doesn’t extensively explore moderate political positions.
• Message Content: Effects depend on appeals specifically targeting appropriate moral foundations. Generic environmental messages show no differential effects across ideologies.
• Temporal Stability: The 14-week field study suggests effects persist over time, but longer-term boundary conditions aren’t explored.
• Cultural Context: The research is conducted in the United States; cross-cultural boundaries aren’t examined.

Building on Previous Work

The paper extends several research streams:

• Moral Foundations Literature: Applies Graham, Haidt, and Nosek’s moral foundations theory to consumer behavior, moving beyond political psychology into marketing contexts.
• Message Congruence Research: Builds on work by Chandon, Wansink, and Laurent on message-individual difference congruence, extending it to political ideology.
• Fluency Research: Extends Lee and Aaker’s work on regulatory fit and fluency to ideological fit contexts.
• Sustainability Research: Addresses calls from Crittenden et al. and Polonsky for new approaches to overcome consumer reluctance toward green marketing.

The paper challenges the assumption that environmental appeals should be universally framed and instead advocates for ideologically-targeted messaging.

Major Theoretical Contribution

The paper makes three significant theoretical contributions:

1. Novel Application of Moral Foundations: First to systematically apply moral foundations theory to consumer behavior and marketing contexts.
2. Fluency as Underlying Mechanism: Identifies processing fluency as the psychological mechanism explaining why ideologically congruent appeals are more effective.
3. Spillover Framework: Demonstrates how targeted disposition behaviors can influence broader sustainable consumption patterns through a fluency-mediated pathway.

Major Managerial Implication

Segment by Political Ideology:

• Marketers and policy makers should create ideologically-targeted environmental campaigns rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.
• Conservative-targeted appeals should emphasize duty, authority, and in-group benefits, while liberal-targeted appeals should focus on fairness, individual action, and harm reduction. This targeted approach can significantly increase the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives.

Unexplored Theoretical Factors

Several potentially influential factors weren’t examined:

1. Construal Level: How abstract vs. concrete message framing might interact with political ideology.
2. Temporal Distance: Whether appeals for immediate vs. future environmental benefits differentially affect liberals and conservatives.
3. Social Proof Mechanisms: How different types of social proof (descriptive vs. injunctive norms) might vary in effectiveness across ideologies.
4. Threat vs. Promotion Framing: Whether loss-framed environmental messages interact differently with political ideology than gain-framed messages.
5. Source Credibility: How the political affiliation or perceived ideology of message sources influences effectiveness.
6. Personal Relevance: Whether the environmental issue’s perceived personal impact moderates ideological congruence effects.
7. Cognitive Load: How processing capacity constraints might differentially affect liberals’ and conservatives’ responses to congruent appeals.
8. Identity Salience: Whether making political identity salient enhances or diminishes congruence effects.

Reference

Kidwell, Blair, Adam Farmer, and David M. Hardesty (2013), “Getting Liberals and Conservatives to Go Green: Political Ideology and Congruent Appeals,” Journal of Consumer Research, 40 (2), 350–67.