Judgements about others’ behavior is often made based on the relative rank of that behavior. We investigated this in the new domain of pro-environmental behavior, specifically for the categories of energy and water consumption, food (meat) consumption and transport choice. Using unimodal and bimodal distributions, we experimentally manipulated three fictional individuals’ (common points) rank positions while keeping their absolute frequency of behaviors constant. Consistent with previous literature, participants’ judgements about these people’s pro-environmental behavior differed based on their rank position. Rank effects were not moderated by the perceived importance of others’ behavior, the perceived visibility of the behavior, or the perceived level of control. The results of this experiment are in line with a Decision by Sampling account of judgments of pro-environmental behavior, and set a foundation for future research seeking to conduct behavioral interventions (such as rank-based nudges) within this domain. Prior to this, however, future studies should investigate whether the smaller effect sizes found in this experiment, compared to those seen in previous research, are attributable to methodological differences, or the domain itself.

Authors:

Harry D. Coulson: University College London; Adam Harris: University College London