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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
examining the size of the packaging; or the number of layers used to pack a given item. Thus, packaging amount may be a likely driver of environmental friendliness per- ceptions, with packaging using additional layers or larger amounts of materials being deemed less environmentally friendly. Following this logic, toothpaste that comes in a plastic tube plus a paper box ought to be considered worse for the environment than toothpaste that comes in a plastic tube only. Running counter to the above “less is better” logic, the general evaluability theory suggests that people may not rely on packaging amount in their evaluations because they will have difficulty assessing whether a given amount of packaging is large or small (Hsee and Zhang 2010). For example, Hsee (1998) reports that people do not rely on the absolute size of a product in their willingness to pay judg- ments, because absolute size is difficult to evaluate. As a result, people become willing to pay more for a dinnerware set with 24 intact pieces compared to a set with 31 intact and 9 broken pieces and for a cup overfilled with 7 oz of ice cream compared to a cup partially filled with 8 oz of ice cream. Given that consumers may be unable to evaluate the absolute amount of product packaging when evaluating its environmental friendliness, we propose that they will rely on the paper-to-plastic proportion, a salient and easily evaluable cue, when assessing packaging environmental friendliness. In line with this logic, extant research sug- gests that proportional reasoning guides consumer judg- ments in a range of domains, from sensory perception (Garner 1953; Krishna and Hagen 2019), to gamble assess- ments (De Langhe and Puntoni 2015), to product evalua- tions (Hsee 1998). In sum, we argue that, guided by the “paper ¼ good, plastic ¼ bad” belief, people should judge packaging that consists of 100% plastic as low in perceived environmental friendliness. Critically, once a layer of “good” paper is added to a layer of “bad” plastic, the proportion of paper to plastic will increase, leading consumers to judge an objec- tively larger amount of packaging to be more environmen- tally friendly compared to a smaller amount of packaging consisting of plastic alone. We refer to this effect as the PEF bias in packaging evaluations.
data from a panel of Dutch consumers indicate that con- sumers largely ignore production, transportation, and stor- age considerations when forming their environmental friendliness evaluations and mainly focus on the post- consumption treatment of packaging waste. Consequently, they come to perceive non-returnable plastic as more envi- ronmentally harmful compared to non-returnable card- board but perceive returnable plastic as less harmful (van Dam1996). External Cues. In addition to consumers’ sensory expe- riences and beliefs, several external sources facilitate the “paper ¼ good, plastic ¼ bad” belief. First, the belief is fostered by the availability of paper bags and unavailability of plastic bags in grocery stores purporting to be more environmentally friendly, such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s (Dapcevich 2019; Martin 2008). By the same token, the belief is strengthened by paper packaging of foods positioned in terms of their “all natural ingredients.” To illustrate, several small organic coffee brands (e.g., Real Good Coffee Co., Fresh Roasted Coffee) and organic choc- olate brands (e.g., Dagoba, Green, and Black’s) use paper and the distinct color of cardboard boxes for outer packag- ing of their products. Similarly, content analysis of product packaging across four product categories in Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland indicates that products positioned as organic are more likely to feature paper and less likely to feature plastic in their packaging (Chrysochou and Festila 2019). Second, media present consumers with messages consis- tent with the “paper ¼ good, plastic ¼ bad” belief. Plastic waste has received much negative media attention in recent years, with coverage of plastic pollution and plastic waste appearing in outlets such as The Guardian , The New York Times , and The Washington Post . Consumers receive news about national and municipal governments instituting plas- tic bag bans (Nielsen, Holmberg, and Stripple 2019) and plastic straw bans (Smith 2020), while allowing single-use paper bags and straws. People are also presented with vis- ceral images of animals dying from plastic waste in docu- mentaries like Planet Blue II (Dunn, Mills, and Ver ıssimo 2020). In sum, we propose that repeated sensory experiences, naturalness/unnaturalness beliefs, combined with unequal weighing of environmental impact from production versus disposal, and interactions with companies and mass media foster the “paper ¼ good, plastic ¼ bad” belief in consum- ers’ minds. Packaging Amount versus Packaging Proportions Even though consumers often lack the information needed to accurately judge packaging environmental friendliness (Gifford 2011), in most cases, they can easily see the amount of product packaging, by, for example,
OVERVIEW OF STUDIES
We report eight studies supporting our theorizing ( N ¼ 4,103; see table 2 for an overview). Studies 1a and 1b provide evidence of the PEF bias. They show that adding paper to a layer of plastic increases the perceived environ- mental friendliness of product packaging. Studies 2a and 2b test the underlying process. Study 2a shows that the effect of adding paper to plastic is stronger when the pro- portion of paper in product packaging increases. Study 2b
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