["Business Strategy and the Environment, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThis paper examines how individuals' responses to descriptive (what most others do) and injunctive (what others believe people should do) pro‐environmental appeals depend on their value orientations. Across two studies using representative samples (United States: recycling electronic waste; United Kingdom: recycling single‐use batteries), the findings show that pro‐environmental appeals influence behavioral intentions through psychological reactance when individuals' value priorities conflict with the appeal. Descriptive normative appeals evoke less psychological reactance than injunctive normative appeals. However, reactance consistently emerges among individuals with stronger egoistic values (in both countries) and among those with weaker altruistic values (United States) or weaker biospheric values (United Kingdom). These findings advance research on normative appeals by clarifying when such messages are effective and when they backfire. Specifically, the study demonstrates that value orientations moderate the effectiveness of descriptive and injunctive normative appeals and provides novel evidence of the role of psychological reactance in shaping pro‐environmental behavioral intentions.\n"]