Sustainability labels as heuristic cues

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Catarina Reis Gonçalves Ribeiro da
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/29710
• topic: Sustainability labels; Fairtrade; Organic; Sustainable consumption; Product evaluation; Heuristics; Dual-process theories; Símbolos de sustentabilidade; Avaliação de produtos; Orgânico; Heurísticas; Teoria de processo duplo de raciocínio; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Summary: We know sustainability labels like Fairtrade and Organic are used by people to infer price, quality and ethicality of products. In this study we propose that these labels can be processed in a superficial way, working as heuristic cues to make inferences about the products. Therefore, when in the presence of both sustainability labels and other more complex information regarding a product, conditions of high cognitive load should lead to an increase of the relative weight given to the sustainability labels to make judgments about that product. Through an experimental study following a 2(Cognitive load: high; low) x 2(Sustainability label: present; absent) x 2(Product description: positive; negative) mixed-subjects design, it was possible to collect and analyze product evaluations from 125 participants , in different conditions of cognitive load. The cognitive load conditions (high or low) were manipulated to potentiate a more, or less intuitive processing of information of the consumers, and understand how they evaluate the products and use the sustainability labels in different conditions. In high cognitive load conditions, participants were asked to memorize 9-digits numbers, while in low cognitive load conditions, participants were asked to memorize 3-digits numbers. The study revealed that sustainability labels are indeed being used by the consumers to make inferences of price, ethicality and quality. These inferences based on the labels are especially significant when the participants are in conditions of high cognitive load, suggesting that consumers use these labels as heuristics, especially when they cannot process other more diagnostic information regarding the products.