In the past, scholars and policy makers have tried to educate as well as incentivize practices like recycling to avoid reduce landfill stocks and create new objects from past used materials. Such products have been commercialized more and more by big brands (i.e. Adidas and Levi’s) and by famous fashion designers (i.e. Stella McCartney). While more academic literature has focused on drivers for consumers’ motivations to engage in recycling activities, there has been little research investigating consumers’ underlying psychological factors to favour recycled products over standard ones. In this study we address this issue by experimentally testing consumer evaluation and intention to adopt recycled products through an implicit theory – or mind-sets-framework on. In a set of three studies we demonstrate how consumers holding and incremental mind-set – who believe that trait like intelligence, morality or personality are malleable and transformable over time – are more keen top adopt products made of recycled materials. In contrasts, individuals with an entity mind-set – who instead believe human traits are fixed and non-mutable- are more sceptical to embrace such products. In Experiment 1 we demonstrated that the chronic incremental mind set of individuals influences their intention to acquire a recycled – over a non-recycled – coffee mug. In Experiment 2, we demonstrate through a laboratory experiment that this preference for products made out of recycled materials is stable in individual with an incremental min-set – over their entity min-set counterpart – even below the liminal attention threshold. Finally, in Experiment 3 we demonstrate that by attributing the merit of the transformation in a different object to qualities that are embedded in the materials used (rather than to the process to transform them) can make recycled products more appealing also to individuals with an entity mind-set. The results of these studies contribute to the literature on implicit theory by investigating another area in consumer psychology (intention to adopt recycled products) so far unexplored. On a managerial point of view, this study suggests how highlighting the effort spent by a company in creating the product can attract consumer (especially incremental theorists) to intend to buy the product, while highlighting the qualities of the material used can attract more entity theorists.

This study focuses on exploring how to close attitude-behavior gap of consumers with regards to both recycled and upcycled fashion products. Specifically, this study is to explain the purchase gap between purchase intention and purchase experience of these sustainable products. Although many consumers had positive attitudes toward sustainable products, they often ended up not purchasing them. Factors including perceived values, risks, environmental concern, perceived consumer effectiveness, subjective norms, and demographic variables were examined to understand the discrepancy. The results indicate that antecedents of purchase intention were different from those of purchase experience and that influencing factors for recycled products were different from those for upcycled products. This study provides insights into understanding consumers and developing effective strategies to encourage desirable behaviors.