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Regulatory fit effects for injunctive versus descriptive social norms: Evidence from the promotion of sustainable products

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Abstract

Consumers face marketing messages using social norms in many situations where different goals are dominant. This research examines moderating effects of regulatory focus for descriptive and injunctive norms in the promotion of sustainable products. More specifically, it shows that descriptive norms have a better fit with a promotion than prevention focus, while this is not the case for injunctive norms. Three experiments examine consequences for perceived message fluency, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Experiment 1 investigates regulatory focus when induced before a normative message, whereas Experiments 2 and 3 investigate regulatory elements ingrained in the message itself. Results show that messages with descriptive norms are perceived as more fluent and have a stronger impact on attitudes and intentions when promotion goals are salient than when prevention goals are salient. Unlike descriptive norms, injunctive norms are not affected by regulatory focus. Marketers using descriptive norms should develop message wording and context accordingly.

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Notes

  1. To ensure that the source of the norm could be equally identified in both norm conditions, a pretest (n = 80, two missing responses) was conducted. Participants were shown one of the messages. The title of the message was repeated, and they were asked which group maintains this norm with regard to organic milk (answer options: university board, members of “All About Food,” Wageningen students, and general Dutch population). In total, 73.8 % of participants gave the correct answer, and this did not differ significantly between the two types of norms (χ 2(1) = 2.10, p = .15).

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support of TransForum (Veldkamp et al. 2009; DOI: 10.1051/agro:2008022), an innovation program for the Dutch agricultural sector.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, Carlos III University of Madrid, Calle Madrid 126, Getafe, 28903, Madrid, Spain

    Vladimir Melnyk

  2. Marketing and Consumer Behavior Group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Erica van Herpen, Arnout R. H. Fischer & Hans C. M. van Trijp

Authors
  1. Vladimir Melnyk
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  2. Erica van Herpen
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  3. Arnout R. H. Fischer
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  4. Hans C. M. van Trijp
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Correspondence to Erica van Herpen.

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Melnyk, V., van Herpen, E., Fischer, A.R.H. et al. Regulatory fit effects for injunctive versus descriptive social norms: Evidence from the promotion of sustainable products. Mark Lett 24, 191–203 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-013-9234-5

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