The Impacts of Anthropomorphic Plastic Bottle Designs on Consumers’ Recycling Intention: The Mediating Effects of Anticipatory Guilt, Empathy, and Identity-Connection

One hundred forty eight undergraduates recruited from Arizona State University were randomly assigned to one of five conditions: perceptual anthropomorphism (an orange image on the bottle with eyes and a mouth), conceptual anthropomorphism (recycling and product description messages written from a first-person perspective), perceptual and conceptual anthropomorphism, control, and a no-compliance condition (perceptual and conceptual anthropomorphism without the recycling message) to study the impacts of anthropomorphic plastic bottles on their recycling intentions and the mediating effects of anticipatory guilt, empathy, and identity-connection. After seeing a picture based on each group, they completed brief scales of perceived anthropomorphism, empathy, anticipatory guilt, identity-connection, and demographics. The perceptual and conceptual manipulations were only marginally significant in inducing felt anthropomorphism. The interaction effect of perceptual and conceptual manipulation was not significant. Our anthropomorphism manipulations did not significantly increase recycling intentions. Mediation analysis showed that the indirect effect of anticipatory guilt was significant, but the direct effect and the indirect effects of empathy and identity-connection were not significant. The compliance hypothesis was not supported.