Inspiring Green Consumer Choices: Leverage Neuroscience to Reshape Marketplace Behavior

While many consumers profess a desire to help end climate change by engaging in more sustainable behaviors, consumer behavior experts note the "say-do" gap between expressed intention and behavior. How do we explain this? What, if anything, can consumers be encouraged to do to close this gap and purchase sustainable products and services? Inspiring Green Consumer Choices explains the factors that underlie the discrepancy between consumers' expressed preferences and their incongruous behavior in the marketplace. Drawing from advances in neuroscience, behavioral economics and experimental psychology, the author reveals how marketplace behavior is not always rational. Instead it is frequently the product of mental shortcuts, triggered by situational cues and colored by implicit emotional responses. In making purchasing decisions, routine consumer behavior is governed less by intention than by mental habits and unconscious response biases. These tendencies are difficult (but not impossible) to change. Inspiring Green Consumer Choices outlines how techniques such as psychological framing, design of choice architectures and pricing strategy can be used to disrupt habits and promote sustainable behavior. The author also addresses the role that legislative policy and changing social norms can play in accelerating and sustaining behavior change. Illustrated with case studies and filled with best practices, Inspiring Green Consumer Choices helps marketers understand how consumers make purchase decisions in order to shift consumption choices towards a more sustainable future.

Table of Contents:
Chapter - 00: Introduction; Chapter - 01: Conscious Resource Limits and Mental Shortcuts; Chapter - 02: Reward Anticipation and Approach Motivation; Chapter - 03: Habits and their Triggers Along the Path to Purchase; Chapter - 04: Making it Easier to Change Habitual Behaviors; Chapter - 05: The Role of Policy in Incentivizing Consumption Changes; Chapter - 06: Reprogramming the "Behavioral Immune System"; Chapter - 07: Using Social Norms to Accelerate and Sustain Behavior Change; Chapter - 08: Overcoming Resistance to Behavior Change; Chapter - 09: Conclusion

About the Author :
Michael E. Smith is an applied cognitive neuroscientist and consumer insights professional with over three decades of research experience in the human brain and behavioral sciences. He is Principal Scientist and Founder of Adaptation Research and is based in La Jolla, California. He previously served as Vice President of Consumer Neuroscience at Nielsen and was President of CorTechs Labs Inc. He was also Program Officer in Cognitive Neuroscience at the US National Science Foundation. He has held numerous research and teaching positions, written for peer-reviewed journals and trade publications, and speaks at industry conferences.

Review :
"Marketers are increasingly recognizing the value of viewing consumer behavior through the lenses of neuroscience and behavioral economics. This ground-breaking new book extends the application of such insights to the problem of encouraging sustainable consumption. A must read." "A practical guide that could help mitigate the impact of the traditional consumer economy on the planet through changes in consumer behavior." "This book will help anyone in the business of marketing and selling understand the reasons for this gap in consumers' good green intentions and their actual behavior, so they can develop ways to overcome it." "In this terrific new book, Michael E. Smith applies his deep knowledge of both brain science and consumer behavior to answer one of the most challenging questions of our time: how can we change the mental models that guide consumer behavior to encourage more sustainable and environmentally-friendly choices in the marketplace?" "Finally, an accessible volume on the subject of human decision making and its precarious impact on the climate crisis A must-read for students, companies and policymakers who wish to understand the brain and how this information can help mitigate barriers to a greener world."