New year as a moment of change in pro-environmental product consumption: evaluating the habit discontinuity and self-activation hypotheses using a large UK retail dataset
Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Introduction: The New Year, and the New Year's Resolution tradition, may establish January as a moment of personal change: when there could be a temporal landmark for making a "fresh start," a habit discontinuity, and value activation. As such, January may afford opportunities for personal pro-environmental lifestyle changes, such as by changing product choices. Method: = 12,968) linked to 35 months of their sales data (2012-2015) provided by a leading healthcare retailer in the United Kingdom. We compared sales in January to those in other months, focusing on sales of green product varieties and overall product sales (as a dematerialization indicator), and sales of two self-enhancing health product types (nicotine replacement therapy products and weight reduction products) for comparison. Results: Our results confirmed that sales of self-enhancing health products were greater in January than in other months, but we found limited evidence for pro-environmental consumption in January, and no evidence to support the habit discontinuity or value activation hypotheses. Discussion: We discuss these results with respect to behavior change intervention potential and moments of change theory.
Source: Frontiers in Psychology
Institutions: Cardiff University, University of Bath, University of Nottingham
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W4409710401