Understanding the attitude-behavior gap in dietary choices among environmentally concerned Finnish consumers

Abstract

The impacts of consumption on sustainable development has become a major topic and concern globally. Global food production is the single largest factor affecting environmental degradation and the main reason behind it lies in animal agriculture. Sure, meat has cultural meanings and people have been eating it for ages, but should not the rapidly increased amount of concern-toned discussion around the threat of climate crisis indicate that people would start changing their behavior according to those pro-environmental attitudes? The continuing increase in meat consumption speaks against. It is essential to understand how this gap between attitudes and behavior is constructed in order to break the barriers to pro- environmental behavior.

This study will shed light on the role of habits in blocking the pro-environmental behavior among environmentally concerned Finnish consumers, more specifically in their dietary choices. The literature review is based on behavioral theories and the attitude-behavior gap is more closely looked at through the lenses of theories of habit. The study was conducted as a qualitative research and its philosophical assumptions were imperative by nature. Ten structured interviews were conducted to examine Finnish consumers’ attitudes and behavior. This master’s thesis contributes to the literature on sustainable consumption behaviors.

The study revealed what some of the earlier literature had also discussed but yet set aside, that human’s habitual nature and repetitive behavior is the most common barrier among environmentally concerned Finnish consumers to shift to more plant-based diets. This study deepens our understanding on how attitudes and values do not directly cause any behavior, and therefore adds marketers’ understanding of what may cause consumers act certainly and gives policy makers ideas on what could be done to lower the barriers. The findings additionally indicate that few pro-environmental acts might make consumers falsely consider themselves as very pro-environmental, which leads to decrease in motivation to perform other pro-environmental acts which might even create negative spillover effects. In addition, the study adds the notion that ne anxiety and stress evoking nature of grocery shopping, makes dietary changes more unattractive.