271 - NUDGING HUMAN BEHAVIOR TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY: THE ROLE OF PERSONALITY TRAITS AND LOCUS- OF- CONTROL

Session: D09S001 - Consumer Psychology and Sustainability
AUTHORS:
Mohanty Atasi (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur ~ Kharagpur ~ India) , Suresh Devika (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur ~ Kharagpur ~ India) , Mohanty Aashish (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur ~ Kharagpur ~ India)
Abstract text:
Introduction
Nudges can be defined as any factor that will make changes in behavior of an individual in a predictable way, without removing the choices available for the individual. There are different kinds of nudges. Using these nudges to increase sustainable behaviors in individuals are widely explored in contemporary studies.
Purpose
This study investigates whether various personal factors like personality traits, locus of control and gender could influence the human behavior. In this study we tried to explore whether Big-five personality traits like openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism as well as internal versus external locus of control do have any relationship with nudge effectiveness for promoting sustainable behaviour among youngsters ; if there is any gender difference in nudging for sustainability.
Method
Data were collected from 450 individuals currently enrolled in IIT Kharagpur using Personal demographic sheet, Big- five Personality questionnaire, Rotter's Locus of control scale and a questionnaire to check nudge effectiveness. For half of the sample no nudge questions were given whereas for other half social nudge-based questions were administered; these were given randomly.
Results
Data collection was done in online mode using google forms and statistical analysis was done using SPSS. Findings revealed that there is no significant relationship between personality traits, locus of control and nudge effectiveness. The results also indicated that there is no significant gender difference in nudge effectiveness.
Conclusions
These results tentatively support the idea that nudging impact can be observed irrespective of individual personality factors. Future study has been planned on the basis of this finding with larger and more diverse sample to examine the generalizability of these conclusions. This study contributes to the growing body of literature exploring how individual differences moderate the effectiveness of behavioural interventions such as nudges for sustainable behaviour.