Research on adults has examined the effectiveness of social labelling on influencing
consumption, especially ecofriendly consumption, and has proposed a self-concept-based
mechanism to explain the effectiveness. Surprisingly, however, despite the growth in
children’s consumption autonomy at an earlier age and their influence on other family
members and peers, social labelling effectiveness has scarcely been investigated among
children. In addition, discussions of the mechanisms of social labelling have remained at a
theorizing level. To address these gaps, this research shows that a nonintrusive ecofriendly
social labelling protocol is effective at triggering preadolescents’ pro-environmental
dispositions and behaviours, thus eliminating the social dilemma that may come into play in
this context. It also demonstrates the counterintuitive moderating role of self-concept clarity
in this process, with preadolescents who display a clearer self-concept being more likely to act
according to the label. These original findings have implications for public policy makers and
follow-up research.