Food Quality and Preference, volume 148, article 106122, February 2027
- Open access
- Preregistered
- Field experiment
- Real choice
- Ecuador and Norway
- WEIRD samples
- Latin America
- authority principle
- commitment and consistency
- sustainability
- fairtrade
- sustainable consumption
- sustainable food choice
- pro-environmental behaviour
- green consumer behaviour
- ethical consumption
- fairtrade label
- sustainability labels
- eco-labels
- chocolate
- social influence
- persuasion
- Cialdini's principles of persuasion
- expert endorsement
- source credibility
- match-up effect
- nudging
- cross-cultural consumer behaviour
- individualism and collectivism
- power distance
- majority world
- Ecuador
- Norway
- field experiment
- preregistered study
- behavioural choice
- sustainability marketing
- social marketing
- point-of-purchase messaging
- SDG 12 responsible consumption
When a message said that sustainability experts recommend choosing sustainably, 57% of people picked the fairtrade chocolate, against 34% with no message. The authority message worked equally well in Ecuador and Norway, two countries usually assumed to respond to persuasion differently.
Key findings
- Social influence messages increased sustainable choices. In a preregistered field experiment with 346 people in Quito (Ecuador) and Kristiansand (Norway), 48.1% of those who received a social influence message chose a fairtrade-labelled chocolate, compared with 33.9% of those who received no message, χ²(1) = 6.25, p = .008, d = 0.27 (Cardenas et al., 2027).
- Authority did most of the work. A message stating that sustainability experts recommend choosing sustainably led 57.3% of participants to choose the fairtrade chocolate, compared with 38.6% after a commitment-and-consistency message, χ²(1) = 8.06, p = .003, d = 0.38 (Cardenas et al., 2027).
- Culture did not change the effect. Contrary to the preregistered prediction that authority would work better in collectivist Ecuador and commitment-and-consistency in individualistic Norway, country did not moderate the effect of the messages (b = 0.02, p = .966), and there was no main effect of country (Cardenas et al., 2027).
- The effect held against a less attractive product. A validation study (N = 44) showed that the fairtrade chocolate was seen as more sustainable than the alternative (M = 4.73 vs. 3.86 on a 7-point scale) but less appealing in brand, expected taste and packaging, making the choice a conservative test of the messages (Cardenas et al., 2027).
At a glance
- Design
- Preregistered 3 × 2 between-subjects field experiment
- Participants
- 346 adults recruited in city centres and on university campuses: 208 in Quito, Ecuador, and 138 in Kristiansand, Norway (autumn 2025)
- Conditions
- No message (control), an authority message, or a commitment-and-consistency message at the top of a paper-and-pencil survey
- Outcome
- Real choice of a study gift: one of two chocolates at the same price, one carrying a salient fairtrade label
- Analysis
- Chi-square tests with orthogonal contrasts; moderation by country with PROCESS Model 1
- Validation
- Separate study (N = 44) confirming the fairtrade chocolate was seen as more sustainable but less attractive on all other dimensions
Share of participants choosing the fairtrade chocolate
The question
Most behavioural research uses samples from Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies; samples from Latin America remain rare. Classic accounts of culture predict that authority appeals should persuade more in collectivist, high power-distance countries, and commitment-and-consistency appeals more in individualistic ones. We tested both principles side by side in Ecuador, traditionally classed as collectivist, and Norway, traditionally classed as individualistic, using a real product choice rather than stated intentions.
Implications
Practical implications
Brands, retailers and public agencies can raise sustainable choices with authority messages, provided the source fits the behaviour: sustainability experts, trusted organisations or government officials rather than celebrities or sports stars. Showing the authority making the sustainable choice, and matching the source to the audience, should strengthen the effect where trust in such authorities is moderate to high. The same principle applies to policy campaigns towards Sustainable Development Goal 12, for example environmental officials recommending reusable cups at airports and stations.
Theoretical implications
The authority principle generalised across two countries assumed to hold very different cultural values, extending laboratory evidence of similar obedience to authority across cultures to a behavioural field setting. The absence of the predicted cultural difference adds to work questioning the individualism–collectivism and East–West dichotomies; Latin American consumers, for instance, often show independent self-construals usually linked to individualism.
Limitations and future research
- The samples differed in age (mean 26 in Ecuador, 40 in Norway), mirroring national age profiles; results held when controlling for age.
- The authority source fitted the target behaviour, while the commitment message relied on passive commitment and was less concrete, which may have widened the gap between the two conditions.
- Future studies could test the fit between authority source and behaviour, active versus passive commitment, the mechanisms behind the authority effect, and other world regions, including qualitative designs.
Questions this paper answers
Do authority messages increase sustainable product choices?
Yes. In a preregistered field experiment in Ecuador and Norway (N = 346), 57.3% of people who were told that sustainability experts recommend choosing sustainably picked a fairtrade-labelled chocolate, compared with 38.6% after a commitment-based message and 33.9% with no message (Cardenas et al., 2027).
Does culture change how persuasion principles affect sustainable consumption?
Not in this study. Country did not moderate the effect of authority versus commitment-and-consistency messages on fairtrade choices in Ecuador and Norway, despite their different cultural profiles (Cardenas et al., 2027).
Which works better for promoting fairtrade choices: authority or commitment and consistency?
Authority. The authority message produced a substantially higher fairtrade choice rate than the commitment-and-consistency message in both countries, χ²(1) = 8.06, d = 0.38 (Cardenas et al., 2027).
What kind of authority should brands use to promote sustainable products?
A source whose expertise fits the behaviour, such as sustainability experts, trusted organisations or government officials, rather than celebrities or sports stars (Cardenas et al., 2027).
Key concepts
- Authority principle
- People are more likely to follow a recommendation when it comes from a source they see as a credible expert or institution.
- Commitment and consistency principle
- Once people commit to a position, they tend to act in line with it so that they appear, and feel, consistent.
- Contextually aligned authority
- An authority whose expertise matches the behaviour being encouraged, here sustainability experts recommending sustainable choices (the match-up effect).
- WEIRD samples
- Research participants from Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic societies, who dominate behavioural science despite being a small share of the world's population.
Open science and materials
- Full text Free to read under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- Preregistration (AsPredicted) One deviation reported: extra campus data collection after rain limited city-centre recruitment in Kristiansand
- Supplementary data Available with the article on the publisher's site
- Data Available from the authors on request
Study materials
- Authority message
- “Dear citizen, to protect our planet from accelerated climate change, sustainability experts strongly recommend citizens to choose sustainably.”
- Commitment-and-consistency message
- “Dear citizen, don't you also want the best for our planet? Then make sustainable choices!”
- Choice task
- Two chocolates priced the same ($8 per package), one with a highly salient fairtrade label, offered as a thank-you gift after the survey.
- Measures
- Trust in authorities (three items, van Dijke & Verboon, 2010), need for consistency (single item), need to belong (single item) and ecological dominance orientation, on 7-point scales.
Messages reproduced from the article (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0); they were adapted from Baca-Motes et al. (2013) and Whittler and Manolis (2015).
How to cite
Cardenas, M., Cardenas, J. J., Schivinski, B., & Otterbring, T. (2027). More alike than unalike: Contextually aligned authority arguments amplify sustainable choices across cultures. Food Quality and Preference, 148, Article 106122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2026.106122
Open access under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.