Increasing Purchase Intention by Prompting Self-commitment

Abstract: There is a general consensus today that it is good to act in accordance with socially normative behaviour such as taking care of the environment. But even though most consumers have a positive attitude towards such behaviour, they often fail to convert that attitude into action. With the expansion of an ethical consumption, there is an increased need to understand the variety of consumer motives for engaging in socially normative behaviour.The purpose of this thesis is to explore whether prompting consumers to commit to buying organic products increases their purchase intention of said products. An increase in purchase intention should, in theory, be caused by an avoidance of cognitive dissonance. Thus, this thesis also investigates if the mechanism behind an increased purchase intention is the avoidance of cognitive dissonance. An online study with 214 respondents was performed to examine whether prompting consumers to commit to buying organic products increases their purchase intention. Four groups (control, commitment only, self-affirmation & non-affirmation) were used. The results show that prompting consumers to commit to buying organic products tends to increase their purchase intention, and that the underlying mechanism is likely to be the avoidance of experiencing cognitive dissonance. A field experiment with 120 respondents was conducted to examine whether the results of the online study could be replicated in real life. Two groups (control & commitment only) were used, and the results show that the purchase intention tends to increase also in a real life setting.