Fairtrade coffee consumption in Spain: Employing dual attitudes and construal level theory to draw insights on the ethical purchasing gap

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/jfairtrade.3.1.0001
• Pages: 1-19
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Elena Kossmann,Mónica Veloso,Mónica Gómez-Suárez
• Subject Matter: Ethical purchasing gap,ethical consumerism,implicit association test,dual attitudes,construal level theory,fair trade,consumer behaviour,coffee

1

Fairtrade coffee consumption in Spain: Employing dual attitudes and

construal level theory to draw insights on the ethical purchasing gap

Elena Kossmann, Mónica Veloso and Mónica Gómez-Suárez

Dr Elena Kossman has been International Marketing Manager in Fairtrade for four years, executing

with her team of peers the first global campaign ‘World Fairtrade Challenge’. In 2021 she completed

her doctoral research on consumer decision-making processes for Fairtrade products at the Universidad

Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). Together with her supervisor, she has published articles about this topic in

journals such as Frontiers in Psychology and International Review of Public and Nonprofit Marketing.

Mónica Veloso is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). Her

current research topics include sustainable tourism, consumer behaviour and experience. She has recently

participated as speaker in the I International Forum on Circular Economy, Eco-innovations and Tourism

and published papers in academic journals, such as Spanish Journal of Marketing.

Dr Mónica Gómez-Suárez is Associate Professor of Marketing at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

(Spain). Her current research interests include consumer behaviour sustainability, community attachment

in sustainable development and well-being, amongst others. She published more than 50 peer-reviewed

articles in academic and professional journals.

Abstract

As a contribution to the debate about Fair Trade contributions to the United Nations

Sustainability Development Goals, this article investigates Spanish shoppers’ behaviour towards

Fairtrade coffee. Although consumers generally state that they purchase fairly traded products,

the market shares of most of them remain low, a phenomenon known as the ethical purchasing

gap. Our review identifies a gap in extant literature to draw insights on the ethical purchasing gap,

utilising two existing theories: attitudes and construal level as appropriate theoretical framework.

The first theory highlights the duality of individuals’ attitudes towards an object: explicit attitudes

are accessible to the consumers, whereas implicit attitudes are the ones they cannot recall, but

nonetheless affect behaviour. The second theory examines the influence of low-level construal

(concrete, specific) or high-level construal (general) information on decision-making. A three-

stage experiment took place in two sessions in a large university in Madrid in order to apply these

two theories. It was based on an online survey on explicit attitudes and purchase intention, and

an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to identify implicit attitudes. It was run two weeks apart to

capture three points of time effects. The results reveal that, despite exposure to different stimuli,

implicit attitudes remain stable along three points of time. The average difference in purchase

intentions was positive for low-level construal and negative for high-level construal. Explicit

attitudes were not influenced by the exposure to the stimuli. No correlation was found between

purchase intentions and implicit or explicit attitudes. These findings have useful managerial

implications for both Fair Trade practitioners and academics.

Keywords: Ethical purchasing gap; ethical consumerism; implicit association test; dual

attitudes; construal level theory; fair trade; consumer behaviour; coffee

Journal of Fair Trade Volume 3, Issue 1, 1–19

2

Introduction

The earth has reached its limits (Biermann, 2012; Dao, Peduzzi & Friot, 2018; Wijkman, Rockström &

Rockström, 2013) and it is now high time to rethink our consumption and production practices. Climate change,

fresh-water depletion, deforestation, over-fishing, as well as pollution and increased rates of hunger, have

helped push the sustainability debate to the forefront of scientific discussions across many disciplines. The

continued pressure to lower agricultural prices has been putting immense pressure on those at the weakest end

of the supply chain, that is, producers who work hard to produce the food we put on our tables.

Humanity continues to face serious humanitarian issues, such as hunger, migration, war, while access to

water, education and medical care are still challenging in many parts of the world. Often migration is the result

of falling agricultural prices, which motivates people to leave the countryside and seek employment in the city.

Alarming is also the fact that the income gap between the rich and the poor was in 2015 at its highest in 30 years

in many countries (OECD, 2015, pp. 3, 15). An impressive 85 per cent of the world´s poor live in rural areas (Alkire

et al., 2014). Income inequality results in decreased access to education, which in turn leads to wasted potential

and lower social mobility (OECD, 2015, pp. 3, 15). This is known to slow GDP growth (OECD, 2015, p. 3).

For social change to happen, humanity needs to find new ways out of the current vicious circle. This implies

changing production, as well as consumption patterns. In this paper, we will discuss the case of fairly traded

coffee in the realm of sustainable or ethical consumption. Fair Trade has the mission to secure humane

minimum prices for producers, to enable them, their families and their communities to thrive, away from the

frequently exploitative practices in world trade. It therefore contributes to the achievement of several of the

United Nations Sustainability Development Goals. Fairtrade International identifies Goal 1 ‘End poverty in all its

forms everywhere’ as central to Fairtrade´s mission. Moreover, Goal 2, 5, 8, 12, 13, 16 and 17 are also addressed

through the work of Fairtrade (Fairtrade.net, n.d.-b), as Fairtrade does not only concentrate on monetary

benefits for the farmers and plantation workers but also aspects of social and environmental sustainability.

Fairtrade addresses issues such as gender equality, inclusive, sustainable economic growth, combating climate

change, ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, promotion of peaceful and inclusive

societies and strengthening the global partnership for sustainable development.

Despite the global community’s commitment to the SDGs and the relevance of Fairtrade to those, Spain

is one of the least developed Fairtrade markets (see the section on Fairtrade Consumption in Spain). With

the present study, the authors aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of the decision-making around

the best known and selling Fairtrade product, coffee, through the lens of dual attitudes and construal level

theory in Spain, with the aim of offering insights that will increase its consumption. To date, there has been

very little research on the influence of implicit attitudes on the consumption of Fairtrade products

(Kossmann & Gómez-Suárez, 2018, 2019). The objective of the research is to identify if there are shifts in

explicit and implicit attitudes, and purchase intentions over time, following exposure to two stimuli: high-

level and low-level construal.

Therefore, the main research questions are:

1. Will the exposure to high (low) level construal information lead to increased (decreased) purchase

intention for Fairtrade coffee?

2. Will the effect be larger in the short than in the long run?

3. What will be the effect of this exposure to high (low) level construal information on implicit attitudes?

4. Will the effect differ between the short and the long run?

5. What will be the effect of this exposure to high (low) level construal information on explicit attitudes?

6. Will the effect differ between the short and the long run?

7. Will implicit or explicit attitudes be better predictors for purchase intentions?

To be able to assess those shifts a longitudinal, experimental research design was deployed. This study

implemented a one-factor, two-level (information: concrete, abstract) between-subjects, repeated measures

design with explicit attitudes, implicit attitudes and purchase intentions as dependent variables. Through a