Green consumer habits may not be impacted by gamification practices, but people who purchased environmentally friendly products in the past are likely to continue to do so, according to a team of researchers, who theorized that adding gamification techniques to a consumer’s eco-friendly purchasing habits would perpetuate green consumerism.

Gamification is a technique that attempts to motivate a person to continue doing an activity, such as purchasing, through features such as loyalty point programs, leader boards and online communities.

The research team, led by Lewen Wei, a recent Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, Penn State graduate, said the team was interested in understanding the motivational complexity behind people’s everyday sustainability practices. The project explored game-based solutions that have the potential to increase intrinsic motivations to purchase eco-friendly products.

«We need a continuous commitment to green consumerism in order to make a dent in the environmental harm caused by human activity, so it requires a strong intrinsic motivation, especially in spite of many external factors that might constrain their behaviors like the higher costs and lower availability of eco-friendly products,» said Wei, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University in Finland.

According to the team, one of the challenges to maintaining green purchasing practices is moral licensing, which is «a psychological phenomenon that occurs when people perceive themselves as licensed to refrain from good behavior when they have accrued a surplus of moral currency,» the authors wrote in the paper «Gamifying Green Consumerism Websites: Can Gamification Mitigate Moral Licensing and Ideological Resistance to Green Behaviors?» in a recent issue of the Journal of Communication Technology.

«A past commitment to green consumption might free people from continuing this practice for a while because they might feel like they have earned enough credits as a person dedicated to sustainable behaviors thus far, so that it should be considered acceptable if they decide to make some less environmentally friendly options in the future,» said Jessica Myrick, professor of media studies and research team member.

Story Source:
Materials provided by Penn State. Original written by Kevin Sliman. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.