Whatever people say I am that’s what I am: Social labeling as a social marketing tool

In this paper, we present a procedure to apply the social labeling technique as a social marketing tool. With four studies, we tested its potential for the promotion of proenvironmental consumer behavior. The procedure first provokes an environmentally friendly act and, subsequently, invites the target to attribute that behavior to his personal values, by communicating a social label. If successful, consumers will act upon the resulting selfperception as an environmentally friendly person. Results indicated that social labeling is more successful when cognitive resources are distracted, either at the moment of processing the label, or at the moment of making decisions related to the content of the label. Second, we found that the social label not merely guides subsequent decisions, but motivates people to re-interpret their previous behavior.