Digital Nudging for Green Consumption: Leveraging Social Media Micro-Influencers to Reshape Sustainable Purchase Intentions through Normative Feedback Algorithms

This research investigates the efficacy of digital nudging mechanisms implemented through social media micro-influencers to reshape sustainable purchase intentions. Environmental degradation and climate change necessitate transformed consumption patterns, yet significant barriers impede the translation of environmental awareness into sustainable purchasing behaviors. Digital nudging, conceptualized as behavioral economics-informed modifications to choice architecture that preserve decision autonomy while facilitating environmentally responsible choices, presents a promising intervention strategy. The study employs a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design integrating a controlled experiment with qualitative insights from interviews and content analysis. Through a between-subjects factorial design, the research systematically manipulates influencer credibility and normative feedback type across four product categories: fashion, food, household goods, and personal care. Results demonstrate significant main effects for both influencer credibility and normative feedback type, with a notable interaction effect indicating contextual dependencies in intervention effectiveness. High-credibility micro-influencers employing injunctive normative feedback generate the strongest sustainable purchase intentions, with normative perceptions functioning as a significant mediating mechanism. Qualitative analysis discloses four main mechanisms—authenticity signaling, normative alignment, contextual resonance, and category-specific response patterns—that are involved in siting the quantitative findings. Product visibility is found to be an important moderating variable, with fashion products showing higher levels of responsiveness to norms compared with personal care products. This study adds to theoretical foundations of digital nudging in sustainability design by specifying contextual boundaries and psychological determinants that influence intervention efficacy. Recommendations regarding micro-influencer campaigns on the basis of these findings involve proposing that intentionally normative feedback levels be included as a means to promote sustainability consumption habits in increasingly digital-marketplace environments.