Hedonic and normative beats gain: A micro-randomized test of goal-framing in everyday green travel decisions

Conduct a smartphone-based micro-randomized trial delivering green travel nudges framed as hedonic (feel-good), normative (do the right thing), or gain (save money/time), with and without media primes and proximal time anchors (e.g., “today” vs. “this year”). Outcomes include mode choice, route choice, and repeated adoption. This is novel because prior research found media persuasion influenced normative and hedonic goals strongly but not gain goals, challenging the dominance of gain frames in sustainability messaging. The study tests this anomaly in the wild, within-person, and examines interactions with media cues and temporal specificity. It builds on person-specific modeling and micro-randomization methods to detect causal effects and probes whether proximal time anchors enhance hedonic/normative frames in commuting versus leisure contexts and whether effects persist or decay. The promising outcome is that hedonic/normative frames may consistently outperform gain frames in daily choices, especially when paired with timely media cues, challenging conventional sustainability messaging. The impact could shift green travel campaigns toward hedonic/normative appeals, improving mode-shift outcomes and informing policy and product design for sustainable transport.

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