476
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
TABLE5
STUDY 1B: PACKAGING STIMULI
Plastic condition
Visible plastic+paper condition
Hidden plastic+paper condition
comes to adding layers of paper of varying sizes, the aver- aging and the proportional reasoning accounts’ predictions diverge. A small-sized layer of paper should be perceived as more environmentally friendly than a large-sized layer of paper. Thus, per the averaging account, adding a small- sized layer of paper to plastic should lead to greater per- ceived environmental friendliness than adding a large- sized layer of paper to plastic. By contrast, per the propor- tional reasoning account, adding a small-sized layer of paper to plastic should lead to lower perceived environ- mental friendliness than adding a large-sized layer of paper, because in the former case the paper-to-plastic pro- portion will be smaller. Study 2a tests these competing predictions. Method Eight hundred two MTurk panelists completed this study. One participant was removed because of a duplicate IP, resulting in a final sample of 801 participants ( M age ¼ 41.37, 51% female). 1 1 The results for this and the remaining studies with duplicate IP exclusions do not change if we include all completed surveys in the analysis. Web appendix C reports the result summaries with and with- out duplicate IP exclusions.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of four con- ditions (packaging type: plastic vs. plastic þ paper in three different proportions—1 plastic þ 1 = 2 paper, 1 plastic þ 1 paper, 1 plastic þ 2 paper). While the amount of plastic packaging remained the same across conditions, the amount of paper increased, and consequently, so did the proportion of paper in product packaging (table 6). Packaging layers were presented on the same screen, one above the other. The presentation order of plastic and paper layers (paper on top vs. plastic on top) was counterbalanced. Participants were asked to imagine that they bought tomatoes at a farmers’ market. They saw an image of toma- toes and an image of their packaging side by side. Presenting the tomatoes next to their packaging allowed us to make the amount of plastic and paper used in product packaging clear for the participants. In line with the paper- to-plastic proportion account, we expected that increasing the amount of added paper would increase the perceived environmental friendliness of product packaging. Participants saw the tomato packaging and evaluated it on the four-item PEF scale. Next, participants completed a manipulation check (web appendix B) and reported their age and gender.
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