Another research avenue is to examine decision making in
cases where consumers are subject to conflicting social
pressures – for example, if they believe that their relevant
others have opposing beliefs. In this paper, ECARO was
calculated for every respondent and corresponds to the
average level of environmental concern attributed by
participants to the three identified members of their social
network. Nevertheless, some referents may exert a stronger
influence than others. Therefore, it might be useful to identify
relevant variables that could be used to introduce weightings
in the calculation. Homogeneity vs. heterogeneity in terms of
levels of environmental concern among relevant others could
also be taken into account. The average values of overall
ECARO scores correspond either to a homogeneous average
value among all the referents or to a combination of low and
high levels of environmental concern. The tests carried out as
part of this research failed to generate any substantial results,
although experimental approaches could be adapted to
highlight the potential effects of the heterogeneity of beliefs
ascribed to relevant others.