TY  - JOUR
A1  - Balderjahn, Ingo
A1  - Seegebarth, Barbara
A1  - Lee, Michael S. W.
T1  - Less is more!
BT  - The rationale behind the decision-making style of voluntary simplifiers
JF  - Journal of cleaner production
N2  - Enhancing consumer satisfaction and well-being is an important objective of companies, retailers and public policy makers. In the current debate on climate change, a consistent theme is that consumers in developed countries must learn to consume less. The present study (based on representative data sets from the US, N = 1,017, and Germany, N = 1030) addresses these issues by using a scenario-based experiment to analyze how satisfied voluntary simplifiers (people who voluntarily abstain from consumption) are with their purchase decisions in the case of a muesli brand. The research question is whether people who follow a sustainable, simple lifestyle are more satisfied with their daily consumption choices than people who have a more consumerist lifestyle. If so, it would be easier for many people to change their lifestyles and consume less. In addition, this scenario experiment manipulates consumer empowerment and decision complexity since both factors are supposed to influence purchase satisfaction. The results are consistent across both countries and indicate that voluntary simplifiers experience a higher level of purchasing satisfaction than non-simplifiers, whereby empowerment and decision complexity play different roles.
KW  - voluntarily simplicity
KW  - well-being
KW  - consumer empowerment
KW  - decision complexity
KW  - sustainable consumption
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124802
SN  - 0959-6526
SN  - 1879-1786
VL  - 284
PB  - Elsevier Science
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -