The Information Specificity of Environmental Claims and External Disconfirming Information

External disconfirming information that counters corporate environmental claims can similarly vary in their level of specificity, as do environmental claims, based on factors such as the information environment of the firm, the communication mix channel, and media scrutiny (Lyon and Montgomery 2013). Depending on these factors, external information can arrive to consumers as specific, such as coverage that the company in question does not make products from renewable sources (if the company claims so), or vague, such as information suggesting that a firm is merely “not green” without any evidence of how or why it is not so. In the current research, we contend that how consumers form brand attitudes and purchase intentions when environmental claims are disconfirmed by external, third-party information should depend on the information specificity (vague vs. specific) of environmental claims and the external information that disconfirms those claims.

In reference to corporate environmental claims, current regulations argue that vague claims can mislead consumers into thinking that a company is more “green” than it actually is (FTC 2012). For example, the claim “we are environmentally friendly” is misleading without offering more specific evidence to back up such a claim. But just like how vague environmental claims can mislead consumers to think that a company is more “green” than it actually may be (attracting the frowns of regulatory bodies), vague disconfirming information would similarly allow room for doubt in consumers regarding the veracity of vague disconfirming information.

In the persuasion literature, vague claims give consumers room to more easily assimilate or integrate how the subsequent, supposedly contradicting information may or may not co-exist with those initial attitudes (Fabrigar and Petty 1999; Muthukrishnan et al. 1999). Literature on judgment revision best informs this hypothesis. Pham and Muthukrishnan (2002) argued that the extent to which information is commensurable influences the revision of judgments. They argued that vague initial judgments undergo less judgment revision in the face of specific information because the information incompatibility makes it harder for consumers to see the specific counter information as indeed countering the initial judgment.

As specific environmental claims provide a definite (supposed) account of a firm’s environmental endeavors, we proffer that only specific (vs. vague) disconfirming information from a third party would lead to more harsh consumer responses—namely more negative brand attitudes and lower purchase intentions. Consider a specific environmental claim such as “We make our products from renewable sources.” Specific external information such as “The company does not produce products from renewable sources” would directly disconfirm the firm’s environmental claims, leading to more negative attitudes. This contention is in line with how direct countering evidence is more effective in persuasion (Fabrigar and Petty 1999; Petty and Cacioppo 1986; Pham and Muthukrishnan 2002; Snyder 1989). In contrast, vague external information such as “The company is not environmentally friendly” would provide less precise counter-arguments against specific environmental claims. The vagueness of such information allows consumers to reason, for instance, that the company never claimed to be environmentally friendly “generally” but it may be so in some other manner. The ensuing incompatibility between a specific claim and a vague disconfirmation provides consumers with more room for legitimate doubt, decreasing consumers’ negative reactions.

However, when the environmental claims are vague, there should be no differences in consumers’ brand attitudes or purchase intentions whether external disconfirming information is specific or vague. When external information is vague, it clearly would not discount the (vague) environmental claims made by corporations as it offers no credible evidence. But when external information is specific, such as when consumer protection agencies find that a firm does not produce products from renewable sources despite the firm claiming that they are “green,” the consumer could conceivably reason that the firm could be green in other respects. The vagueness of the environmental claims offers room for consumers to perceive specific information to be not as contradictory to environmental claims as third party agents may intend (Bless and Schwarz 2010; Pham and Muthukrishnan 2002). In summary, we expect that the information specificity of external information moderates the effect of information specificity of environmental claims on brand attitudes and purchase intentions, such that:

Hypothesis 1

When environmental claims are specific, specific (vs. vague) disconfirming information will lead to lower (a) brand attitudes and (b) purchase intentions, whereas when environmental claims are vague there will be no difference on the basis of the specificity of external disconfirming information.

Skepticism Toward the Claim, Credibility Toward the Company

Beyond exploring how specific or vague external information moderates the effect of specific or vague environmental claims on consumer reactions, we seek to unearth the process mediating the effect. Prior research points to green skepticism—or the disbelief about corporate claims praising the environmental performance of a green offering (Mohr et al. 1998; Becker-Olsen et al. 2006)—as a likely response to potentially misleading or false green claims (Nyilasy et al. 2014). However, prior CSR research has mainly measured and modeled the antecedents of green skepticism, such as perceptions of CSR, corporate history, norms in the industry, intrinsic motives (Leonidou and Skarmeas 2015), environmental concerns (do Paço and Reis 2012), and green consumerism (Matthes and Wonneberger 2014). There is limited prior CSR research that use experimental methods to test the link between environmental claims or external information and green skepticism, with two notable exceptions. Nyilasy et al. (2014) studied effects of claims disconfirmed by evidence of low corporate environmental performance. Parguel et al. (2011) investigated the effect of how consumers use sustainability ratings to form their evaluations of environmental claims. Neither study, however, delves deeper into the information specificity of either environmental claims or external information.

In addition to a paucity of experimental research, CSR communication research does not distinguish between different skepticism types. Negative consumer responses to communications can be differentiated on the basis of the focal object being the environmental claims or the firm that is making them. Skepticism refers to distrust of marketing communications (Ford et al. 1990; Forehand and Grier 2003; Obermiller and Spangenberg 1998; Webb and Mohr 1998); credibility refers to distrust of the source of the communications (Forehand and Grier 2003). We anticipate that the interactive effect in Hypotheses 1 applies to green skepticism and corporate credibility as well. Specifically, when environmental claims are specific, specific external information should increase skepticism toward the claims and lower corporate credibility in serial, whereas vague external disconfirming information will create an informational incompatibility facilitating room for doubt, thus reducing green skepticism and increasing corporate credibility. But when green claims are vague, the information specificity of external information should not matter as it will not directly contradict the claims (Bless and Schwarz 2010). In summary, we expect that the information specificity of external disconfirming information moderates the effect of information specificity of environmental claims on green skepticism and corporate credibility. More formally stated:

Hypothesis 2

When environmental claims are specific, specific (vs. vague) disconfirming information will lead to (a) higher green skepticism and (b) lower corporate credibility, whereas when environmental claims are vague there will be no difference on the basis of the specificity of external disconfirming information.

So far, Hypotheses 1 and 2 articulate our prediction on the interactive effect of the specificity of environmental claims and external disconfirming information on green skepticism, corporate credibility, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions. We furthermore believe that this interactive effect might influence brand attitudes and purchase intentions through the underlying mechanisms of green skepticism and corporate credibility. However, while skepticism and credibility are similar in that they both refer to perceptions of distrust, the object of skepticism is the communication (Ford et al. 1990; Forehand and Grier 2003; Obermiller and Spangenberg 1998; Webb and Mohr 1998) while the object of credibility is the source of the communications (Forehand and Grier 2003).

We thus contend that skepticism toward the claims should come first, and then inform consumers’ perceived credibility about the company. If no prior attitudes toward the source exist (such as for new companies), consumers rely on any other available cue to inform their judgment (Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier 2011; Payne et al. 1991). Where the company making the green claims is new to consumers, the only “cue” on which they can rely to form an initial judgment would be those environmental claims. Therefore, skepticism toward environmental claims should spill onto perceptions of corporate credibility. Formally stated:

Hypothesis 3

The interaction effect between the information specificity of environmental claims and external disconfirming evidence on (a) brand attitudes and (b) purchase intentions will be serially-mediated by green skepticism (1st mediator) and corporate credibility (2nd mediator).

Figure 1 depicts the theoretical model and summarizes the hypotheses.