Stairway to organic heaven: The impact of social and temporal distance in print ads

• Published in: Journal of business research Vol. 139; pp. 1044 - 1057
• Main Authors: Loebnitz, Natascha, Frank, Phillip, Otterbring, Tobias
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.02.2022
• Subjects: Construal level theory; Intention-behavior gap; Organic food; Reactance theory; Social distance; Temporal distance; Social distance; Reactance theory; Organic food; Construal level theory; Temporal distance; Intention-behavior gap
• ISSN: 0148-2963; 1873-7978
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.10.020

•Depicting humans vs. animals (=low social distance) induces psychological reactance.•Ads featuring animals in an ideal future husbandry state increase purchase behavior.•Consistent findings for directly, indirectly, and aggregated organic products.•Implications for closing the organic intention behavior gap. Multiple studies employ consumers’ intentions rather than actual purchases when assessing organic food consumption. These studies typically suggest a green bias in organic market share. Employing reactance and construal level theory, this research investigates the impact of one’s social distance to the character depicted in ads (animal vs. human) and the temporal distance (present vs. future) toward organic animal husbandry on consumers’ purchase responses directly; indirectly, as related to the portrayed character; and generally to organic foods. Three 2 (temporal distance: low, high) × 2 (social distance: low, high) between-subjects experiments demonstrate that low social distance depicting humans rather than animals induces psychological reactance, which impedes purchase intentions of organic groceries, whereas ads featuring high social and temporal distance (depicting animals in an ideal future husbandry state) increase consumers’ purchase intentions and actual purchase behavior, even for products with no direct connection to the depicted character in the ads.