The Role of Morality in Creating Cognitive Dissonance and
Developing More Consistent Environmentally Responsible Behaviors
In “A cognitive dissonance interpretation of consistencies and inconsistencies in
environmentally responsible behavior” (Thørgersen, 2004), the author analyzes the responses of
309 Danish consumers surveyed in a mall about their environmentally responsible behaviors
(ERBs), to test his hypothesis that the desire to behave consistently (i.e., avoid the discomfort of
cognitive dissonance) should produce a positive correlation between these behaviors if they share
motivational roots. He further proposed that interaction between moral norms and similarity
perception would affect the correlation. Such a finding, the author stated, would have important
implications for the formation of policies aimed at promoting ERBs and thereby creating more
sustainable societies. At the time of publication of Thørgersen’s article, this correlation had yet to
be proven conclusively; indeed, as of 1993, many researchers in the field inferred that
“environmentally beneficial choices…are not reflective of a general conservation stance, but are
instead made on an activity-to-activity basis.” (Pickett et al., 1993)
To go beyond previous attempts to find correlations between ERBs, Thørgersen
developed a survey instrument that not only asked about 15 specific ERBs, but asked subjects to
rate the similarity/dissimilarity of pairs of ERBs constructed from the original set of 15. Subjects
were then asked to rate the activities in terms of “right” and “wrong” in order to provide an index
of personal moral norms for each subject. The first part of the survey would provide data for the
first hypothesis (1.1): “volitional ERBs are positively correlated because people strive to be
consistent in their performance/nonperformance of behaviors that are connected by a common
association to a super-ordinate goal, such as environmental behavior.” The results of the last two
survey questions would provide data for two more hypotheses (1.2 and 2): “the correlation
between ERBs depends on how similar or dissimilar they are perceived to be in terms of
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relationship to super-ordinate goal…individuals will strive harder to perform two such activities
consistently the more similar they perceive them to be in these reports” and “the influence of
perceived similarity on the correlation between ERBs depends on how morally important it is for
the person to behave in an environmentally friendly way because moral importance influences the
amount of dissonance produced by acting inconsistently in the environmental field.” In addition,
the survey instrument was constructed to remove any confounding ERB “substitutes,” such as
taking public transportation and traveling by bicycling. It also sought to avoid attenuation due to
idiosyncratic constraints by focusing on a variety of consumption habits.
In addition to regression analysis and to decrease the measurement error introduced by the
self-report method, the author grouped certain questions into behavior groups (“buying organic
food” and “recycling”) that would be different enough that a correlation between them would not
be trivial and used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to measure for it.
The study found rather low correlations between pairs of ERBs, but attributed this to
measurement error. A strong relationship was found between similarity assessments and pairwise
correlations, providing strong support for Hypothesis 1.2. And a strong correlation was found
among the moral importance of ERBs rankings, similarity assessments, and
consistency/inconsistency of ERBs, with the highest consistency in the group with high norms
who perceived similarities between ERBs and the lowest in the group with strong norms who
perceived little similarity between ERBs. This strongly supports Hypothesis 2.
Of note, the degree of behavioral consistency for those individuals holding weak moral
norms for ERB was independent of how similar they perceived the categories to be. Indeed, the
worst consistency was not from this group, but from those with high norms but who did not
perceive the similarity between ERBs. This would argue that perhaps developing high norms isn’t
as necessary as the author believes it is to creating a society that is consistent in its ERBs. On the
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contrary, the data suggests that educating consumers about the environmental significance of
daily behaviors is a more effective strategy to producing consistent ERBs. In effect, as the author
asserts, if the desire to avoid cognitive dissonance is the motivational drive behind ERB
consistency, it cannot exist in a vacuum of environmental knowledge.
By thinking of ERB in terms of morality, linking it with the development of moral norms
that, combined with the introduction of the concepts of humanity’s role in the degradation of the
environment, will theoretically produce the state of dissonance if one does not behave in an
environmentally responsible fashion, the author fails to account for those who do not have high
moral norms, yet exhibit ERBs consistently. Why that is seems an important area for further
study, especially given that norm development takes time, time that we may not be able to afford
in terms of creating more sustainable societies, and may even be resisted or fail to “stick.”
As the author notes, awareness of environmental consequences of personal behaviors will
not necessarily create a population that will “do the right thing” and turn off the water while
brushing one’s teeth, or separating out paper, glass, and plastic for recycling, or buying locally
grown, organic food, etc. At least in the US, where our ecological footprint is enormous, driven
by a convenience- and speed-loving, consumption-oriented culture that infuses nearly everything
we do, the desire to live up to a high norm and avoid cognitive dissonance may not be enough of
a motivational force for government and environmental groups to rely on to produce more
consistent ERBs and therefore a more sustainable society. All the more reason to study what
other motivations may exist for those who practice ERB consistently.
The author also asserts that the desire to behave consistently and avoid cognitive
dissonance produces a “spillover” effect in ERB and that the data show this effect is stronger
when environmental behavior is considered morally important. However, there may be other
variables, i.e., motivating factors, that are involved in producing this effect that do not show up in
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the data. For instance, the desire to gain better health or the fear of dying from cancer could
contribute to the higher reliability index that buying organic received (0.73) as compared to
recycling (0.49), which does not have many alternative motivations (fear of clutter?) outside of
the intrinsic environmental/moral reason for the behavior.
The motivation of “reward,” whether long-term or short-term, could also account for
differences in consistency between ERBs (of course, what constitutes a reward is subjective, but
powerful reward patterns, such as the desire to avoid cancer above, or feeling special because one
is paying more for organic food, may exist). And the self-perception theory of dissonance (Plous,
1993) suggests that decisions about any behavior may be more fluid, changeable, and episodic
than Thørgersen’s moral norm theory, supporting Pickett’s assertion that ERBs are made on an
activity-by-activity basis.
Certainly, in my experience, I felt a tremendous energy toward recycling paper and
conserving its use when I first heard about how forests were disappearing due to paper waste. But
over the years, as more and more of my activities have become marked as “ecologically
unfriendly,” I have to admit a certain amount of inconsistency has crept in to some of my ERBs
even as I have developed new ones. And in some cases I have drawn a line; for instance, although
I am aware that raising beef cattle takes tremendous resources, I still enjoy red meat now and then
and would have to be forced by law to embrace a completely vegetarian lifestyle (that being said,
I consciously try to make two of my meals meatless every day). Some days, the sheer
wastefulness of the American lifestyle gets to me and I feel hopeless that my small efforts make
any difference at all. But of course they do, exponentially, when combined with everyone else’s
small efforts. But is that morality? According to Thørgersen, am I a person of high norms
because I try most of the time to watch my consumption habits? I am not clear about his
definition of high norms, so I cannot say. I do feel a moral imperative to care about the planet, but
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I do not believe this is necessary for consistent ERB. In fact, given the complexity of human
motivations, the diversity of cultures and value systems in the world, it seems vital to
sustainability that cognitive dissonance-inspiring morality is not a necessary ingredient.
References
Thørgersen, John. A cognitive dissonance interpretation of consistencies and inconsistencies in
environmentally responsible behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 24 (2004) 93103.
Pickett GM, Kangun N, Grove SJ. Is there a general conserving consumer? A public policy
concern. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. 12, 234-243.
Plous, Scott. The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. McGraw-Hill, NY: 1993.
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