Saving the world one scrap at a time: Identity labeling as as tool to reduce household food waste
Food waste is a significant driver of climate change, and it threatens human and planetary health. In fact, the average American household discards between 30% - 40% of their edible food each week. Reducing food waste could divert material from landfills, where it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Decreasing food waste would also mean that more of the planet’s resources could contribute to feeding the population. Social psychological research demonstrates the importance of values and identity in understanding and promoting proenvironmental behaviors, such as household food use and disposal. In this dissertation, I review the social psychological literature, focusing on applications to the food waste problem. I focus on environmental identity as a predictor of proenvironmental behavior and intentions to reduce food waste. This series of studies employs labeling to impact food use behaviors and intentions. Labeling is a technique used to highlight an identity or emotion by making it salient as the underlying reason for a person’s behavior. Labeling has been applied to wildlife conservation, recycling, and donating funds. In Studies 2 and 3, I apply labels that highlight a proenvironmental or egoistic identity in a household food waste context. The current work is a partial replication of Carfora and colleagues (2017), who explored the moderating role of proenvironmental identity in an online sample of Italian participants, demonstrating the importance of proenvironmental identity in reducing food waste. This dissertation uses similar methodology in measuring proenvironmental identity, food use behaviors, and intentions to reduce food waste. Three online studies are reported about the food purchasing, use, and disposal behaviors of American households, as reported by the primary grocery shopper. In Study 1 (N = 202), participants reported their food purchase, use, and disposal practices for the previous week, as well as measures of proenvironmental identity and intentions to reduce food waste in the coming week. Results supported previous research demonstrating that proenvironmental identity predicts intentions, particularly in a household food waste context. Study 2 (N = 420) was an experiment wherein participants completed measures reporting behaviors from the previous week and the same measure of proenvironmental identity. Then, participants were randomly assigned to receive different labels for their patterns of behavior: proenvironmental, egoistic, or neutral. The labels were presented as feedback but were randomly assigned, and highlighted either a proenvironmental or egoistic identity, or presented behavior as average, in the control group. For example, your responses indicate that you are a proenvironmental/wasteful/typical consumer. Participants then reported their intentions to reduce food waste in the coming week. Results demonstrated that proenvironmental identity moderates the relationship between reported behaviors and intentions to reduce food waste, as shown in the work by Carfora and colleagues (2017). Results also indicated that participants who received a proenvironmental identity label reported higher intentions than those who received an egoistic label. Study 3 (N = 232) was an experiment that followed the same procedure as Study 2, with an additional follow-up measure one week after the initial collection. At Time 1, participants reported food use behaviors, proenvironmental identity, and intentions, then received a randomly assigned label. One week later at Time 2, participants were reminded of their label, and then reported behaviors, identity, and intentions again. Results showed that proenvironmental identity labeling lead to an increase in reported behaviors from Time 1 to Time 2, but did not significantly increase proenvironmental identity. Taken together, this body of work underscores the importance of proenvironmental identity in influencing high-impact behaviors such as food shopping, use, and disposal. Importantly, Study 3 results stand as evidence that proenvironmental identity labeling can lead to an increase in proenvironmental behaviors. Limitations, practical applications, and future directions are discussed.
identity, labeling, proenvironmental behaviors, values, Psychology
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