Encouraging ecological behaviour through induced hypocrisy and inconsistency

Remembering one's past transgressions of a social norm is known as an effective paradigm for enhancing pro-social and ecological behaviours. Our study aimed to show that reminding one's norm transgressions can arise cognitive dissonance and can lead to behavioural change as induced hypocrisy does. In particular, we tested whether inconsistency between the self-concept and the remembered past transgressions is or is not likely to encourage behavioural change. To reach this goal, we conducted an experiment comparing induced hypocrisy, injunctive inconsistency and descriptive inconsistency with five comparison conditions. The results showed that, as observed with the induced hypocrisy paradigm, presenting a salient injunctive norm and its past transgressions enhances psychological discomfort, actual donation and donation amounts for an ecological association. The discussion addresses applied perspectives and theoretical implications.