The role of guilt in influencing sustainable pro-environmental behaviors among shoppers: Differences in response by gender to messaging about England's plastic-bag levy

Sidharth Muralidharan and Kim Sheehan

To motivate shoppers to bring reusable bags, England has enforced a carry-bag law, allowing large retailers to charge 5 pence for a single-use plastic bag.

Management Slant

  • The law helped motivate shoppers to bring reusable bags, but about half the sample continued to buy plastic bags after the bag law was enforced.
  • Significant gender differences existed only in the high-guilt condition, in which women had more favorable attitudes than men; among women, attitudes were significantly more favorable in the high-guilt condition than in the low-guilt condition.
  • Although women are more eco-conscious than men, their proenvironment behavior stems primarily from egoistic concerns, such as saving money, rather than biospheric concerns, such as the health of the planet.
  • The findings suggest that green guilt does affect men...

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