Irbe, Ivars (2026) How do social norms and sustainability-related self-identity influence sustainable purchase intentions in Dutch supermarket contexts? Bachelor thesis, Global Responsibility & Leadership (GRL).
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Abstract
Sustainable consumption patterns have been increasingly recognised as necessary in addressing environmental challenges. Still, a gap remains between the population’s pro-environmental intentions and their behaviour, in the context of consumption. This intention-behaviour pattern is limiting positive impacts that consumers could have on increasing sustainability levels in markets. This study inspects if and what influential effects do social norms and sustainability-related self-identity (SRSI) have on sustainable consumption preferences in the context of Dutch supermarkets. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour for base, as well as research on social influence and self-identity related behavior, this study investigates whether the psychological mechanisms of social norms and self-identity encourage customers to prefer sustainable products. In order to form a research experiment, a quantitative survey was conducted among more than a hundred participants aged 18-40 years old, residing in the Netherlands at the time of the survey completion. The participants were exposed to four conditions during their completion of the survey: a control condition serving as baseline, a social norm condition, a sustainability-related self-identity condition and a combined condition of social norms and SRSI. Ranking questions in the survey, finalising each condition section provided data on the preference ranking of five Dutch grocery-typical products. These products differed in their description of popularity (“most consumed”) and visual perception of sustainability. The main findings of this study was that social norms and sustainability-related self-identity cues have little effect on consumer's product preferences when applied individually. However, when both psychological interventions are combined interdependently, the study found that participants had a significantly stronger preference for sustainable-labeled products. Therefore, the conclusion was that a consumer’s sustainable purchase intentions are more effective in purchase decisions when influenced by social norms and sustainable-related self-identity cues that reinforce each other. These results also support previous results from research on social influence and sustainability-related self-identity and their effect on consumer behaviour. Most participants reported a high awareness of sustainability-related concepts, yet their attitude-behaviour gap remained in their purchasing decisions. The financial realities of participants were identified as the main limitation in purchasing sustainable products, as well as mistrust in sustainable labels, and suspicions of greenwashing. The study concludes that psychological interventions with two factors such as social norms and SRSI reinforcing each other can increase sustainable purchase preferences and intentions, but the effectiveness of interventions in this domain depends on broader societal and structural conditions, including affordability, corporation's transparency and credibility of labels.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
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| Name supervisor: | McKeown, M.C. and Kilian, S.K. |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Jun 2026 11:48 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jun 2026 11:48 |
| URI: | https://campus-fryslan.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/821 |
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