Going green to be seen: status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation
Griskevicius, with Joshua Tybur and Bram Van den Bergh, tested the costly signalling account of green buying across three experiments in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The headline is that activating status motives led people to choose green products over more luxurious products that were not green. The paper is more careful than the way it is usually quoted, because it reports two conditions on that effect in its own abstract. Status motives raised the appeal of green products when people were shopping in public and not when they were shopping in private, and when the green option cost more than the alternative and not when it cost less. Both conditions are what a signalling account predicts, since a signal nobody can see is simply a worse product and a signal that costs nothing is not a signal. The sample sizes are not confirmed here. On standing, this is the better supported half of the literature, three experiments with two sensible moderators, but it is important to be exact about what was measured. Griskevicius measured what people wanted to buy once status motives were salient. It does not establish that displaying a green product actually buys status, which is a separate question, and the extended field replication by Berger that this site also cites found no green signalling effect of that kind.
Griskevicius, with Joshua Tybur and Bram Van den Bergh, tested the costly signalling account of green buying across three experiments in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The headline is that activating status motives led people to choose green products over more luxurious products that were not green. The paper is more careful than the way it is usually quoted, because it reports two conditions on that effect in its own abstract. Status motives raised the appeal of green products when people were shopping in public and not when they were shopping in private, and when the green option cost more than the alternative and not when it cost less. Both conditions are what a signalling account predicts, since a signal nobody can see is simply a worse product and a signal that costs nothing is not a signal. The sample sizes are not confirmed here. On standing, this is the better supported half of the literature, three experiments with two sensible moderators, but it is important to be exact about what was measured. Griskevicius measured what people wanted to buy once status motives were salient. It does not establish that displaying a green product actually buys status, which is a separate question, and the extended field replication by Berger that this site also cites found no green signalling effect of that kind.
Written from the citation as recorded when this source was checked, and the article on this site built on it.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Three experiments; activating status motives led people to choose green products over more luxurious non-green products. Verified at the published record 2026-10-05. doi:10.1037/a0017346
Where we use it
- Going Green Where Someone Can See You, Why We Crave
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The source
No link available. The citation as the article records it:
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., & Van den Bergh, B. (2010). 'Going green to be seen: status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(3), 392-404. Three experiments; activating status motives led people to choose green products over more luxurious non-green products. Verified at the published record 2026-10-05. doi:10.1037/a0017346