What could explain the attitude–behavior gap? In attitude research, people
often give socially desirable answers. Ulrich and Sarasin (1995) somewhat
cynically claimed not to do any research and not to ask the public any question
on this subject because the answers are never reliable and often useless, if
not misleading. Especially in situations in which respondents want to make
a good impression on the researcher or want to conform to social norms,
attitudes measured tend to be more positive than actual behavior (King
and Bruner 2000). Moreover, attitudes are traditionally measured by means
of explicit attitude measures, mostly self-reported paper-and-pencil tasks.
Respondents are not always able and willing to report their attitudes and convictions
accurately, especially in the case of socially sensitive issues such as
ethical consumption behavior (Greenwald and Banaji 1995; Maison 2002).