Haggar, P.  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8753-1848, Sachdev, Y., Whitmarsh, L., Goulding, J., Smith, A. and Smith, G.
2025.
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.
Frontiers in Psychology
16
, 1550091.
10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1550091
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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: To investigate this empirically, we analyzed existing data from a 2016 survey of retail customers (N = 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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Published Online |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Geography and Planning (GEOPL) |
| Publisher: | Frontiers Media |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 1 May 2025 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 3 April 2025 |
| Last Modified: | 13 May 2025 11:10 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/178016 |
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