How to make the unpopular popular? Policy characteristics, social norms and the acceptability of environmental policies

► Environmental policies that are pull measures are evaluated as more acceptable than environmental policies that are push measures. ► Environmental policies targeting low-cost behaviour are perceived to be more acceptable than policies targeting high-cost behaviour. ► Strong social norms towards policy acceptability results in higher acceptability evaluations than weak social norms. ► Interaction effect between push/pull measures and behavioural target on policy acceptability. ► Interaction effect between push/pull measures and social norms on policy acceptability.