Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory

It is believe that there is an “attitude-behaviour gap” in the ethical and sustainable decision making (e.g. Carrigan et al, 2004). Some individuals claim they have relatively high levels of positive attitudes towards certain ethical and sustainable behaviour. However, their positive attitudes may n...

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Main Author: Gao, Mingyang
Format: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
English
Published: 2013
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/26621/
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author Gao, Mingyang
author_facet Gao, Mingyang
author_sort Gao, Mingyang
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description It is believe that there is an “attitude-behaviour gap” in the ethical and sustainable decision making (e.g. Carrigan et al, 2004). Some individuals claim they have relatively high levels of positive attitudes towards certain ethical and sustainable behaviour. However, their positive attitudes may not fully translate into their actual behaviours. In order to explain, predict and change this discrepancy, social psychological behaviour change models such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB, Ajzen, 1985, 1987) is adopted as the basic framework to examine certain specific behaviour. In addition, neutralization theory (Sykes and Matza, 1957) is used in this research to explain the reason why individuals behave less ethically and sustainably despite their positive attitudes and beliefs. The research model of Chatzidakis et al (2007) is adopted to a novel ethical and sustainable context, the usage of non-reusable plastic bag in grocery shopping in China. This research is quantitative based research. Quantitative research method, namely questionnaire, examines the relationships of the psychological factors of behavioural intention. In addition, qualitative research method is used in elicitation questionnaire and open questions in main questionnaire, which generates in-depth insights for quantitative research. The findings of this research could be helpful to make governmental regulations and social marketing massages.
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spelling nottingham-266212018-06-05T16:39:22Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/26621/ Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory Gao, Mingyang It is believe that there is an “attitude-behaviour gap” in the ethical and sustainable decision making (e.g. Carrigan et al, 2004). Some individuals claim they have relatively high levels of positive attitudes towards certain ethical and sustainable behaviour. However, their positive attitudes may not fully translate into their actual behaviours. In order to explain, predict and change this discrepancy, social psychological behaviour change models such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB, Ajzen, 1985, 1987) is adopted as the basic framework to examine certain specific behaviour. In addition, neutralization theory (Sykes and Matza, 1957) is used in this research to explain the reason why individuals behave less ethically and sustainably despite their positive attitudes and beliefs. The research model of Chatzidakis et al (2007) is adopted to a novel ethical and sustainable context, the usage of non-reusable plastic bag in grocery shopping in China. This research is quantitative based research. Quantitative research method, namely questionnaire, examines the relationships of the psychological factors of behavioural intention. In addition, qualitative research method is used in elicitation questionnaire and open questions in main questionnaire, which generates in-depth insights for quantitative research. The findings of this research could be helpful to make governmental regulations and social marketing massages. 2013-09-19 Dissertation (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed text/html en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/26621/1/Mingyang_Gao_dissertation.pdf application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/26621/2/Mingyang_Gao_dissertation.pdf Gao, Mingyang (2013) Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory. [Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)] (Unpublished)
spellingShingle Gao, Mingyang
Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory
title Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory
title_full Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory
title_fullStr Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory
title_full_unstemmed Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory
title_short Mind the "Attitude-behaviour Gap" in the Ethical and Sustainable Decision Making: An Application of Neutralization Theory
title_sort mind the "attitude-behaviour gap" in the ethical and sustainable decision making: an application of neutralization theory
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/26621/