Translating pro-environmental intention to behavior: The role of moral licensing effect

Abstract

Despite an individual's altruistic intentions, these are not always put into practice. The gap between the intentions and behaviors hinders pro-environmental consumption behavior, which has been a highly important subject in the field. Considering that pro-environmental consumption is an altruistic behavior that adjusts and resolves the disparity between personal interests and social values, the role of moral licensing effect should get more attention in translating intention into behavior. However, existing studies failed to thoroughly examine the role of moral licensing effect. To address the gap in the literature, this study specifically attempted to investigate how the moral license effect influences when individual good intentions are linked to behavior. For this purpose, this study developed a novel behavioral model based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), while also examining the significance of the pathway through which pro-environmental behavioral intention influences actual behavior. This study conducted an online self-reported survey online and analyzed the data from 1000 participants. As a result, the level of moral licensing significantly moderated the association between pro-environmental behavioral intention and actual behavior. Participants with higher levels of moral licensing, indicating a greater tendency to rationalize unethical actions, showed a weaker translation of intention into action. It recommends developing differentiated communication strategies based on consumers' moral licensing levels, focusing on facilitating intention-to-action translation for high moral licensing individuals and reinforcing antecedents like perceived benefits for those with low moral licensing tendencies.