Bridging the attitude-behavior gap to promote reusable container use: How message strategies mitigate resistance and enhance hypocrisy induction for sustainability

초록

The global expansion of food delivery has generated unprecedented disposable container waste, exposing a persistent attitude-behavior gap in sustainable hospitality consumption. South Korea exemplifies this paradox: 94% of consumers endorse reducing single-use packaging, yet only 0.1% of delivery orders use reusable containers. Although hypocrisy induction, a cognitive dissonance-based intervention, has shown promise in environmental psychology, its application as a structured intervention in foodservice contexts remains scarce, and prior research has largely overlooked the intermediate psychological processes that explain its paradoxical or backfire effects. Drawing on the action-based model of dissonance and construal level theory, this study examines how cognitive and affective resistance jointly mediate hypocrisy effects and how message design steers these pathways. A 2 & times; 2 & times; 2 between-subjects experiment (N = 779) manipulated hypocrisy induction, message structure (narrative vs. expository), and message frame (health vs. environmental). MANOVA and sequential mediation analyses revealed a paradoxical pattern: hypocrisy induction increased both resistances and reduced attitudes and policy support, yet directly enhanced behavioral intention. Cognitive resistance broadly inhibited attitudinal change, whereas affective resistance was redirected into policy support, revealing a constructive external justification pathway. Critically, message frame determined which resistance mechanism dominated: health frames activated cognitive pathways, while environmental frames activated affective pathways. Theoretically, this extends the action-based model by showing that dissonance-driven motivation can bypass disrupted attitudinal routes, and reconceptualizes resistance as a structured, differentiated mediator rather than mere intervention failure. Practically, the findings offer strategic design guidance for foodservice stakeholders: health-framed narratives drive immediate consumer adoption, while environmental framing mobilizes policy advocacy and systemic support, transforming dissonance into a catalyst for sustainable hospitality transformation.

키워드