Frugal and the environmentally concerned: Who are they, what do they do, and how do you influence them?

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study: Two important consumer segments are the environmentally concerned (EC) and the frugal. There is substantial research on EC consumers (e.g., Kilbourne and Pickett 2008), and they are important to companies involved in green marketing and sustainability. Research on thrifty consumers is sparser (Lastovicka et al. 1999), yet recent changes in the United States' economy may be reawakening an interest in frugality. In this dissertation, I investigate the characteristics of the frugal and the EC consumer. In addition, I employ an experimental methodology to assess the persuasive effects of divergent communications on the two segments. Three studies were conducted. The first assesses the psychometric properties of constructs measuring EC, frugality, and tightwadism (Mowen 2000). The second study builds on the first to investigate the trait antecedents and consequences of EC and frugality. The third study is composed of two experiments that investigate whether frugal and EC consumers respond differently to consumption-related messages. To the author's knowledge, this dissertation represents the first work to simultaneously investigate the psychological characteristics of the frugal and the EC.

Findings and Conclusions: The results reveal that EC and frugality, as measured by tightwadism, are different constructs, and that their antecedent traits and consequent behaviors differ. Study 2 reveals that materialism is negatively related to frugality and unrelated to EC, while a need for learning is unrelated to frugality and positively related to EC. In addition, liberal values are positively related and conservative values are negatively related to EC, while both liberal and conservative values are positively related to frugality. Finally, while both EC and frugality are positively related to green buying behaviors, EC is positively related to recycling, and frugality is positively related to modest living behaviors. The experiments in Study 3 reveal that messages based upon traits predictive of EC and frugality impact consumer evaluations of advertisements. These findings are important to marketers and public policy makers because of their implications for the segmentation of the marketplace as well as the development of a better understanding of sustainability and environmentalism.