IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v132y2021icp594-603.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dump or recycle? Nostalgia and consumer recycling behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Xiadan
  • Gong, Xiushuang
  • Jiang, Jing

Abstract

Although many previous researchers have examined how nostalgia influences consumer purchasing behavior, little is known about whether and how nostalgia affects pro-environmental behavior. Hence, in this paper, we focus on a specific type of pro-environmental behavior, namely, recycling behavior. We suggest that nostalgia induces a sense of meaning, which in turn encourages customers to recycle more. In addition, we hypothesized that both state nostalgia (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and nostalgic products (Study 3) can increase consumer recycling intentions and behavior. More specifically, Study 1 (in a cafeteria) and Study 2 (in a lab) showed that nostalgia elicited by nostalgic music increased recycling behavior, while Study 3 found that nostalgia induced by nostalgic product designs improved recycling intentions. Finally, Study 4 indicated that nostalgia triggered by nostalgic memories augmented recycling intentions, and uncovered the underlying mechanism, a sense of meaning.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Xiadan & Gong, Xiushuang & Jiang, Jing, 2021. "Dump or recycle? Nostalgia and consumer recycling behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 594-603.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:132:y:2021:i:c:p:594-603
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.11.033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296320307888
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.11.033?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Merchant, Altaf & Rose, Gregory M., 2013. "Effects of advertising-evoked vicarious nostalgia on brand heritage," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(12), pages 2619-2625.
    2. Vriens, M. & Vidden, C. & Schomaker, J., 2020. "What I see is what I want: Top-down attention biasing choice behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 262-269.
    3. Andrew Ferguson & Matthew Grosse & Stephen Kean & Tom Scott, 2011. "Your Governance or Mine?," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 21(4), pages 406-417, December.
    4. Blair Kidwell & Adam Farmer & David M. Hardesty, 2013. "Getting Liberals and Conservatives to Go Green: Political Ideology and Congruent Appeals," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(2), pages 350-367.
    5. Kilbourne, William & Pickett, Gregory, 2008. "How materialism affects environmental beliefs, concern, and environmentally responsible behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(9), pages 885-893, September.
    6. Xun (Irene) Huang & Zhongqiang (Tak) Huang & Robert S. Wyer, 2016. "Slowing Down in the Good Old Days: The Effect of Nostalgia on Consumer Patience," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 43(3), pages 372-387.
    7. Remi Trudel & Jennifer J. Argo, 2013. "The Effect of Product Size and Form Distortion on Consumer Recycling Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 40(4), pages 632-643.
    8. Zhou, Ling & Wang, Tao & Zhang, Qin & Mou, Yupeng, 2013. "Consumer insecurity and preference for nostalgic products: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(12), pages 2406-2411.
    9. Merchant, Altaf & Ford, John B. & Rose, Gregory, 2011. "How personal nostalgia influences giving to charity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(6), pages 610-616, June.
    10. Remi Trudel & Jennifer J. Argo & Matthew D. Meng, 2016. "The Recycled Self: Consumers’ Disposal Decisions of Identity-Linked Products," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 43(2), pages 246-264.
    11. Whillans, Ashley V. & Dunn, Elizabeth W., 2015. "Thinking about time as money decreases environmental behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 44-52.
    12. Noah J. Goldstein & Robert B. Cialdini & Vladas Griskevicius, 2008. "A Room with a Viewpoint: Using Social Norms to Motivate Environmental Conservation in Hotels," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(3), pages 472-482, March.
    13. Jun, Sung Youl & Kim, Kyung Ho & Park, Hye Kyung, 2019. "The effect of the preorder strategy on consumers' product choice: The moderating role of product experience and payment timing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 80-86.
    14. Septianto, Felix & Northey, Gavin & Dolan, Rebecca, 2019. "The effects of political ideology and message framing on counterfeiting: The mediating role of emotions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 206-214.
    15. Jennifer Edson Escalas & James R. Bettman, 2005. "Self-Construal, Reference Groups, and Brand Meaning," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 32(3), pages 378-389, December.
    16. Paolo Antonetti & Stan Maklan, 2014. "Feelings that Make a Difference: How Guilt and Pride Convince Consumers of the Effectiveness of Sustainable Consumption Choices," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 117-134, September.
    17. Jannine D. Lasaleta & Constantine Sedikides & Kathleen D. Vohs, 2014. "Nostalgia Weakens the Desire for Money," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 41(3), pages 713-729.
    18. Lauren Feldman & P. Sol Hart, 2018. "Is There Any Hope? How Climate Change News Imagery and Text Influence Audience Emotions and Support for Climate Mitigation Policies," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(3), pages 585-602, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Miaomei Guo & Weilun Huang, 2023. "Consumer Willingness to Recycle The Wasted Batteries of Electric Vehicles in the Era of Circular Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-20, February.
    2. Rashidi-Sabet, Siavash & Madhavaram, Sreedhar & Parvatiyar, Atul, 2022. "Strategic solutions for the climate change social dilemma: An integrative taxonomy, a systematic review, and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 619-635.
    3. Acuti, Diletta & Lemarié, Linda & Viglia, Giampaolo, 2023. "How to enhance the sustainable disposal of harmful products," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 186(PB).
    4. Christina Soyoung Song & Ji Young Lee & Renissa Mutha & Mijin Kim, 2023. "Frugal or Sustainable? The Interplay of Consumers’ Personality Traits and Self-Regulated Minds in Recycling Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-19, December.
    5. Anil Balikci & Yuri Borgianni & Lorenzo Maccioni & Chiara Nezzi, 2021. "A Framework of Unsustainable Behaviors to Support Product Eco-Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-19, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lembregts, Christophe & Cadario, Romain, 2024. "Consumer-Driven Climate Mitigation: Exploring Barriers and Solutions in Studying Higher Mitigation Potential Behaviors," OSF Preprints ywus6, Center for Open Science.
    2. Septianto, Felix & Kemper, Joya A. & Chiew, Tung Moi, 2020. "The interactive effects of emotions and numerical information in increasing consumer support to conservation efforts," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 445-455.
    3. Remi Trudel & Jennifer J. Argo & Matthew D. Meng, 2016. "The Recycled Self: Consumers’ Disposal Decisions of Identity-Linked Products," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 43(2), pages 246-264.
    4. Kwan, Canice M.C. & Cheng, Shirley Y.Y. & Tsang, Alex S.L., 2023. "Societal reminiscence and decisions for a better society: A belief in progress explanation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Hartmann, Benjamin J. & Brunk, Katja H., 2019. "Nostalgia marketing and (re-)enchantment," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 669-686.
    6. Li Yan & Hean Tat Keh & Kyle B. Murray, 2024. "Feeling the values: How pride and awe differentially enhance consumers’ sustainable behavioral intentions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 75-96, January.
    7. Ming, Yaxin & Deng, Huixin & Wu, Xiaoyue, 2022. "The negative effect of air pollution on people's pro-environmental behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 72-87.
    8. Anwar Sadat Shimul, 2022. "Brand attachment: a review and future research," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(4), pages 400-419, July.
    9. Şeniz Özhan, 2020. "The Effect of Nostalgia Proneness on Ad-Evoked Nostalgia, Brand Attitude and Purchase Intention," Istanbul Business Research, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 49(2), pages 380-390, November.
    10. Dixon, Darcie & Mikolon, Sven, 2021. "Cents of self: How and when self-signals influence consumer value derived from choices of green products," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 365-386.
    11. Odou, Philippe & Schill, Marie, 2020. "How anticipated emotions shape behavioral intentions to fight climate change," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 243-253.
    12. Elgaaied-Gambier, Leila & Monnot, Elisa & Reniou, Fanny, 2018. "Using descriptive norm appeals effectively to promote green behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 179-191.
    13. Pecot, Fabien & Merchant, Altaf & Valette-Florence, Pierre & De Barnier, Virginie, 2018. "Cognitive outcomes of brand heritage: A signaling perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 304-316.
    14. Yanmei Tang & Shuangzhou Chen & Zongjin Yuan, 2020. "The effects of hedonic, gain, and normative motives on sustainable consumption: Multiple mediating evidence from China," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 741-750, July.
    15. Strizhakova, Yuliya & Coulter, Robin A., 2013. "The “green” side of materialism in emerging BRIC and developed markets: The moderating role of global cultural identity," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 69-82.
    16. Minton, Elizabeth A. & Johnson, Kathryn A. & Liu, Richie L., 2019. "Religiosity and special food consumption: The explanatory effects of moral priorities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 442-454.
    17. Ana Rita Farias & Seray Coruk & Cláudia Simão, 2021. "The Effects of Temporal Discounting on Perceived Seriousness of Environmental Behavior: Exploring the Moderator Role of Consumer Attitudes Regarding Green Purchasing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-8, June.
    18. van Esch, Patrick & Cui, Yuanyuan (Gina) & Jain, Shailendra Pratap, 2021. "The effect of political ideology and message frame on donation intent during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 201-213.
    19. Philippe Odou & Marie Schill, 2020. "How anticipated emotions shape behavioral intentions to fight climate change," Post-Print hal-02929920, HAL.
    20. Thanh-Thao Nguyen & Bianca Grohmann, 0. "The influence of passion/determination and external disadvantage on consumer responses to brand biographies," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 0, pages 1-14.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:132:y:2021:i:c:p:594-603. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.