Sustainability-message framing altered Japanese consumers’ interpretations but not reported food-waste practices

A randomized two-wave experiment involving Japanese consumers found that different framings of household food-waste messages changed how respondents interpreted them, but did not improve self-reported preventive practices, normative orientation or policy support. The study followed 2,069 participants in Wave 1 and 959 in a five-week follow-up, with participants assigned to messages framed around tax burdens, global hunger, household monetary costs or general information.

The experiment showed that framing causally shifted cognitive-moral responses. Compared with the general-information control, tax framing increased the probability that respondents ascribed responsibility by 5.1 percentage points, while hunger framing produced a 5.8-percentage-point increase. Household-cost framing uniquely raised activation of a personal norm by 4.5 percentage points. These findings indicate that the frames activated different stages within the study’s five-stage Norm Activation Theory framework rather than simply delivering the same message with interchangeable wording.

Those differences in interpretation did not translate into measurable changes in the study’s intention-to-treat outcomes. The researchers reported no effects of message assignment on self-reported preventive practices, normative orientation or policy support. One effect persisted to the five-week follow-up: tax framing reduced motivation to reduce food waste by 0.15 standard deviations. The authors described this result as consistent with motivational crowding-out, although the experiment did not directly test that mechanism.

Open-ended responses were classified into the five Norm Activation Theory stages by two independent large language model coders, with researcher adjudication and a blinded author re-coding exercise. The analysis provides a scalable approach to examining how consumers process sustainability information while preserving distinctions among message interpretation and behavioral outcomes. The evidence is limited to the randomized experiment’s Japanese consumer sample and relies on self-reported outcomes rather than direct measurement of household food waste. As a result, the results support a process-level conclusion: framing can alter cognitive and moral interpretations, but the study did not establish corresponding improvements in reported behavior.

Subject of Research: Experimental effects of sustainability-message framing on Japanese consumers’ responses to household food-waste information

Article Title: How consumers process sustainability messages in a randomized two-wave experiment on household food waste reduction in Japan

Article References: Yamane, T. (2026). How consumers process sustainability messages in a randomized two-wave experiment on household food waste reduction in Japan. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04909-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04909-9

Keywords: household food waste, Japan, message framing, randomized experiment, norm activation, sustainability communication, consumer behavior, self-reported practices, motivational crowding-out, large language model coding, consumers, process