Social desirability bias in green consumerism: its causes, consequences and some potential remedies.

This dissertation aims to disentangle some of the psychological drivers behind the adoption of sustainable products by consumers, emphasizing how these drivers could affect socially desirable responding. It also summarizes how research about sustainable food regards and deal with social desirability bias, and it tests some potential solutions. This study is divided into four different researches. In the first one various drivers of sustainable product adoption are explored, altogether with their interplay with product information and environmental concern. The second research summarizes existing research about sustainable food, showing if and how socially desirability is discussed and mitigated in surveys exploring consumer behavior. The third research tests for the occurrence of socially desirable answering among under-30 consumers, through factorial survey experiments. Finally, a comparative trial between conventional questionnaires and the multidimensional randomized response technique is carried out, suggesting its potential advantages and limitations to measure sustainable consumption among consumers who are recruited on the field.