Why one becomes a responsible consumer: the creation and maintenance of responsible consumption as a self-determined personal project

Abstract

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This paper aims to explain why responsible consumers develop favorable attitudes towards responsible consumption. More specifically, the main purpose of this paper is to explain that role that biography or life experiences play in the formation of the ethical obligation and subsequent responsible consumption-related actions. This paper used a qualitative methodology (Grounded Theory) appropriate for theory generation. By applying personal projects theory and self-determination theory to account for the results, we have found that the formation and realization of the project responsible consumption pass through different stages. These stages span from childhood to adulthood and each stage is characterized by key life experiences. We conclude that responsible consumers become so because their social environment has provided the nutriments for the development of a self-determined project responsible consumption -, oriented to intrinsic motives and autonomously pursued, and for their maintenance, by satisfying the three needs that according to self-determination theory are innate to individuals: competence, relatedness and autonomy