Marketing Sustainable Behaviors on Facebook and
Twitter: Motivational Differences from Three Continents
Lynn Kahle (corresponding author)
Ehrman Giustina Professor of Marketing/Dept. Head
Lundquist College of Business
1208 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1208 USA
1-541-346-3373 (phone)/ 1-541-346-3341 (fax)
lkahle@uoregon.edu
Elizabeth Stickel
Doctoral Student, Lundquist College of Business
1208 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1208 USA
1-541-346-9090 (phone)/ 1-541346-3341 (fax)
stickel@uoregon.edu
Christopher Lee
Doctoral Student, Lundquist College of Business
1208 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1208 USA
1-541-346-9090 (phone) / 1-541-346-3341 (fax)
chrislee@uoregon.edu
Ulrich Orth
Professor & Chair
A&F Marketing
Kaufentscheidungen
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Kiel, Germany
49-0431 880-4416 (phone)
uorth@ae.uni-kiel.de
Chung-Hyun Kim
Dean, School of Communication/Grad School of Mass Communication
Sogang University
C.P.O. Box 1142
Seoul, Korea
82-2-705-8386 (phone)
chkim@sogang.ac.kr
1
Elizabeth Stickel (MBA, Idaho State University), Doctoral Student, Lundquist College of
Business, University, stickel@uoregon.edu.
Christopher Lee (MBA, Arizona State University), Doctoral Student, Lundquist College
of Business, University of Oregon, chrislee@uoregon.edu.
Ulrich Orth (Ph.D, Munich University of Technology, Germany) Professor & Chair,
A&F Marketing, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, uorth@ae.uni-kiel.de.
Chung-Hyun Kim (Ph.D., University of Oregon) Dean, School of Communication,
Sogang University, chkim@sogang.ac.kr.
Lynn Kahle (Ph.D., University of Nebraska), Professor of Marketing/Dept. Head,
Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon, lkahle@uoregon.edu.
2
Respondents in the United States, Germany, and S. Korea (total N = 1018) replied to an
on-line survey about use of Facebook and Twitter regarding sustainable behaviors.
Kelman’s (1958) functional motive (compliance or responsibility, identification, and
internalization), which correspond to the 3 major philosophies of psychology
(behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and humanism), were assessed in this context (cf. Kahle &
Valette-Florence, 2012).
S. Korea is the most collectivist or social of the 3 countries surveyed. It showed the most
activity in social media and sustainability. S. Koreans showed the strongest motivations
regarding the interplay of sustainability and social media, and in all behaviors
investigated except recycling demonstrated the most activity. Sustainability connects to
the social fabric of a society. The evidence from this study is consistent with the
observation that the more collective a society is, all other things being equal, the more
sustainable will be its motivations and activities, consistent with hypothesis one.
Twitter and Facebook presented very different patters in terms of motivations, as we
expected from H2. In only two cases out of 18 tested did the same motive relate to the
same behavior within both social media (Responsibility with household products and
internalization with charity). We found a total of seven links between motives and
behaviors regarding Facebook and only three with Twitter. Perhaps because
communications tend to be longer and relationships more complex on Facebook, it
provides more opportunity for extensive, deep social interaction and for motivations to
manifest themselves (Tuten & Solomon, 2012).
The most important finding of this study is arguably the complex pattern of motivations
between social media and sustainability. Overall responsibility played a larger role in
motivating sustainable behaviors over social media than the other two motives.
Responsibility invokes behaviorism as its primary change mechanism. Rewards and
punishments shape behavior. Changing simple rewards can change patterns of
motivation. We know from a long history of social engineering that mild rewards can
indeed motivate many sustainability behaviors (e.g., Kahle & Beatty, 1987). On
Facebook responsibility is associated with organic consumption, household products,
materialism, and charity.
The other motive that also appeared more than once is internalization. Especially when
discussing charity, internalization appears to be an important motive on social media.
This finding would suggest a different strategy for dealing with sustainability in social
media, and as the invocation of values and means-end theory (e.g., Reynolds & Olson,
2001). Charity in both social media, materialism on Twitter, and transportation discussion
on Facebook would do well to consider the most important questions about who is under
consideration and what the implications are for a person’s deepest ideals. Ironically, this
motivation is probably utilized to influence people more often than it is likely to be
effective. Probably many of the people devising strategies to influence sustainability have
a core self-image more tied to sustainability than the people whom they are trying to
reach.
3
It is interesting that recycling items loaded together with the general item about the
importance of sustainability. Although we would argue that all of the behaviors studied in
this paper are important aspects of sustainability, the respondents apparently view
recycling as the definitional example of sustainable behavior. Perhaps it has been most
clearly promoted as sustainability (Viscusi et al., 2011).
Social media may be especially important in understanding sustainability because
sustainability is inherently social. People who care about sustainability are by definition
concerned about the long-term fate of humans on this planet. Both topics intensely
involve other people on the planet. We know from this research that the interplay is
complex.
4