Buying or lying—the role of social pressure and temporal disjunction of intention assessment and behavior on the predictive ability of good intentions

This study addresses two possible explanations as to why it is particularly difficult to predict socially desirable purchasing behavior. We examine a common phenomenon of overestimating “good intentions” and it is shown that good intentions are less reliable and more sensitive to framing in terms of time as well as more sensitive to social pressure compared to regular intentions. More specifically, a quasi-experiment is conducted, where social pressure and temporal disjunction is manipulated and examined in the context of regular, as well as “good” intentions. We look at the intention to purchase eco-friendly products and how the intention–behavior link is highly sensitive to social pressure and temporal disjunction of intention assessment and behavior as well as to the temporal disjunction of intention assessment and behavioral consequences or rewards in this case.