Relational Verbal Behavior and Eco-Friendly Purchasing: A Preliminary Translational Analysis and Implications

Consumer behavior is impacting Earth’s climate, and solving the climate change crisis will necessarily involve influencing the anthropogenic causes of behavior. The present study evaluated relational frames involving comparative climate relations on consumer choices in a simulated purchasing task. In baseline, participants selected among common household commodities that differed along three dimensions: color, an unfamiliar symbol (Y and Z), and price. Price was sequentially increased for the product with the Z symbol. All participants showed maximum sensitivity to price in baseline, where any increase for Z led to selection of Y across commodities. Relational training involved selecting among climate related stimuli in the presence of the symbols Y and Z, where correct responding occurred when participants selected the more harmful stimulus in the presence of Y and the less harmful stimulus in the presence on Z. A generalization test showed that correct responding transferred to novel stimulus arrangements based on climate impact. In the post-training purchasing phase, six of the seven participants showed reduced sensitivity to increases in price, where price and symbol appeared to interact to influence purchasing. These results have implications for a science of consumer behavior related to climate change from an RFT account.