If They Are All Green, I Take Responsibility for My Eco-Unfriendly Behaviors: Effects of Injunctive Norm on Sense of Responsibility Following Cognitive Dissonance

Individuals may knowingly engage in eco-unfriendly behaviors even though they endorse the injunctive norm that people should protect the environment. Although they presumably experience cognitive dissonance, they often fail to change either their environment-related behavior or their support for the injunctive norm. In the first of two experiments, we compared a low-choice condition (low dissonance arousal) with a standard high-choice condition and a high-choice condition with injunctive norm (high dissonance arousal). Results showed that acting freely in an eco-unfriendly and counterattitudinal manner resulted in less acceptance of responsibility, but responsibility was not denied if the injunctive norm was made salient. We hypothesized that this was driven by a desire to maintain self-integrity. In the second experiment (preregistered study), we sought to test this hypothesis by manipulating self-affirmation and the salience of the injunctive norm in a high-choice situation. Results confirmed that participants protected their self-integrity by denying responsibility or relying on the injunctive norm. Moreover, attitude toward waste recycling was more positive when the injunctive norm was salient, regardless of self-affirmation.