IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v7y2015i6p7959-7972d51429.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Neutralisation and Mental Accounting in Ethical Consumption: The Case of Sustainable Holidays

Author

Listed:
  • Larissa Schütte

    (Durham University Business School, Queen’s Campus, University Boulevard, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees TS17 6BH, UK)

  • Diana Gregory-Smith

    (Sheffield University Management School, University of Sheffield, Conduit Road, Sheffield S10 1FL, UK)

Abstract

The present research aimed to investigate the decision-making process for sustainable holidays, as a type of ethical consumption related to environmental welfare. Using semi-structured in-depth interviews with 20 German holidaymakers of different ages, it was found that individuals use cognitive processes such as neutralisation and mental accounting to justify their unethical/unsustainable choices and to manage negative emotions. The findings also indicated a lack of spillovers between sustainable behaviours at home and holiday-related behaviours. This could be explained by the identification of “ethical” and “unethical” mental accounts, which the interviewees have disclosed. When the compensation between the two types of mental accounts takes place, neutralisation is not used. It was also found that positive and negative emotions could motivate the choice of sustainable holidays. These findings have implications in relation to marketing communications aimed at creating awareness and encouraging the purchase of sustainable holidays.

Suggested Citation

  • Larissa Schütte & Diana Gregory-Smith, 2015. "Neutralisation and Mental Accounting in Ethical Consumption: The Case of Sustainable Holidays," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-14, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:6:p:7959-7972:d:51429
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/7959/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/7959/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Starr, Martha A., 2009. "The social economics of ethical consumption: Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 916-925, December.
    2. Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 15-25, 01-02.
    3. Paharia, Neeru & Vohs, Kathleen D. & Deshpandé, Rohit, 2013. "Sweatshop labor is wrong unless the shoes are cute: Cognition can both help and hurt moral motivated reasoning," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 81-88.
    4. Drazen Prelec & George Loewenstein, 1998. "The Red and the Black: Mental Accounting of Savings and Debt," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 4-28.
    5. Heath, Chip & Soll, Jack B, 1996. "Mental Budgeting and Consumer Decisions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 23(1), pages 40-52, June.
    6. Böhler, Susanne & Grischkat, Sylvie & Haustein, Sonja & Hunecke, Marcel, 2006. "Encouraging environmentally sustainable holiday travel," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 652-670, October.
    7. Alain d’Astous & Amélie Legendre, 2009. "Understanding Consumers’ Ethical Justifications: A Scale for Appraising Consumers’ Reasons for Not Behaving Ethically," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 255-268, June.
    8. Pat Auger & Timothy Devinney, 2007. "Do What Consumers Say Matter? The Misalignment of Preferences with Unconstrained Ethical Intentions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 76(4), pages 361-383, December.
    9. Fernandes, Maria F. & Randall, Donna M., 1992. "The Nature of Social Desirability Response Effects in Ethics Research," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 183-205, April.
    10. Veronika Andorfer & Ulf Liebe, 2012. "Research on Fair Trade Consumption—A Review," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(4), pages 415-435, April.
    11. Michal Carrington & Benjamin Neville & Gregory Whitwell, 2010. "Why Ethical Consumers Don’t Walk Their Talk: Towards a Framework for Understanding the Gap Between the Ethical Purchase Intentions and Actual Buying Behaviour of Ethically Minded Consumers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 97(1), pages 139-158, November.
    12. Anable, Jillian & Gatersleben, Birgitta, 2005. "All work and no play? The role of instrumental and affective factors in work and leisure journeys by different travel modes," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 39(2-3), pages 163-181.
    13. Paul Peeters & Martin Landré, 2011. "The Emerging Global Tourism Geography—An Environmental Sustainability Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-30, December.
    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. Tilov, Ivan & Farsi, Mehdi & Volland, Benjamin, 2019. "Interactions in Swiss households’ energy demand: A holistic approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 136-149.
    2. Pascal Frank & Laura Sophie Stanszus, 2019. "Transforming Consumer Behavior: Introducing Self-Inquiry-Based and Self-Experience-Based Learning for Building Personal Competencies for Sustainable Consumption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-19, May.
    3. Lianne Foti & Avis Devine, 2019. "High Involvement and Ethical Consumption: A Study of the Environmentally Certified Home Purchase Decision," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-11, September.
    4. Caroline Oates & Panayiota Alevizou & Seonaidh McDonald, 2016. "Challenges for Marketers in Sustainable Production and Consumption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-4, January.

    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. Johannes Abeler & Felix Marklein, 2017. "Fungibility, Labels, and Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 99-127.
    2. Lola Hernandez & Nicole Jonker & Anneke Kosse, 2017. "Cash versus Debit Card: The Role of Budget Control," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 91-112, March.
    3. Dilip Soman & Amar Cheema, 2002. "The Effect of Credit on Spending Decisions: The Role of the Credit Limit and Credibility," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 32-53, September.
    4. Antonides, Gerrit & Manon de Groot, I. & Fred van Raaij, W., 2011. "Mental budgeting and the management of household finance," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 546-555, August.
    5. Koch, Alexander K. & Nafziger, Julia, 2016. "Goals and bracketing under mental accounting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 305-351.
    6. Miotto, Ana Paula S. C. & Parente, Juracy, 2015. "Antecedentes e consequências do gerenciamento das finanças domésticas na classe média baixa brasileira," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 55(1), January.
    7. Pamela Yeow & Alison Dean & Danielle Tucker, 2014. "Bags for Life: The Embedding of Ethical Consumerism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 87-99, November.
    8. Manel Baucells & Woonam Hwang, 2017. "A Model of Mental Accounting and Reference Price Adaptation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4201-4218, December.
    9. Kirchler, Erich & Hoelzl, Erik & Kamleitner, Bernadette, 2008. "Spending and credit use in the private household," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 519-532, April.
    10. Cheng, Andong & Baskin, Ernest, 2021. "Disproportionate redemption discounting: Mental accounting of discounted credit," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 156-163.
    11. Edika G. Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart & John Gathergood & George Loewenstein, 2019. "The Red, the Black, and the Plastic: Paying Down Credit Card Debt for Hotels, Not Sofas," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5392-5410, November.
    12. Ina Garnefeld & Andreas Eggert & Markus Husemann-Kopetzky & Eva Böhm, 2019. "Exploring the link between payment schemes and customer fraud: a mental accounting perspective," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 595-616, July.
    13. Sarofim, Samer & Chatterjee, Promothesh & Rose, Randall, 2020. "When store credit cards hurt retailers: The differential effect of paying credit card dues on consumers' purchasing behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 290-301.
    14. Qiu, Shangzhi & Wu, Laurie & Yang, Yanjia & Zeng, Guojun, 2022. "Offering the right incentive at the right time: Leveraging customer mental accounting to promote prepaid service," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    15. Michal Carrington & Andreas Chatzidakis & Helen Goworek & Deirdre Shaw, 2021. "Consumption Ethics: A Review and Analysis of Future Directions for Interdisciplinary Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(2), pages 215-238, January.
    16. Jonathan Dörr & Thomas Wagner & Alexander Benlian & Thomas Hess, 2013. "Music as a Service as an Alternative to Music Piracy?," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 5(6), pages 383-396, December.
    17. Li Chen & A. Gürhan Kök & Jordan D. Tong, 2013. "The Effect of Payment Schemes on Inventory Decisions: The Role of Mental Accounting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 436-451, September.
    18. K. P. M. Winssen & R. C. Kleef & W. P. M. M. Ven, 2016. "Potential determinants of deductible uptake in health insurance: How to increase uptake in The Netherlands?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(9), pages 1059-1072, December.
    19. Chu, Hsunchi & Liao, Shuling, 2010. "Buying while expecting to sell: The economic psychology of online resale," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(9-10), pages 1073-1078, September.
    20. Kamleitner, Bernadette & Hoelzl, Erik & Kirchler, Erich, 2010. "Experiencing costs and benefits of a loan transaction: The role of cost-benefit associations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1047-1056, December.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:6:p:7959-7972:d:51429. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.