Environmental knowledge and motivated beliefs in flight consumption -An economic approach to cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning

Abstract: Growing concerns for increasing consumption, and its impact on global warming, have led interest groups to press individuals and politicians to take action. The environmental movement focus on moral values and attitudes to change consumption behavior. However, previous literature suggests that “green” attitudes do not transform well into individuals’ consumption behavior, questioning such approach. By conducting a choice experiment, this study explores a choice situation where respondents choose between flight and train for a hypothetical vacation scenario. Further, we include environmental knowledge and indicators of motivated beliefs to explain mechanisms behind motivated reasoning and “green” consumption choices. Through a conditional logit model, we show that higher environmental knowledge is significantly associated with higher probability of choosing train. Furthermore, we show that three out of four motivated beliefs indicators, wishful thinking, “not wanting to know” and denial, are significantly associated with higher probability of choosing flight. It indicates that environmental knowledge can be effective in changing consumption behavior, as it increases the psychological cost of engaging in self-deception.