Merging the Social Influence Theory and the Goal-Framing Theory to Understand Consumers' Green Purchasing Behavior: Does the Level of Sensitivity to Climate Change Really Matter?

Abstract

This study explored the formation of consumers' green purchasing behavior (GPB) and investigated the moderating effect of sensitivity to climate change (SCC) to address this current knowledge gap. An integrated model merging the Social Influence Theory and the Goal-framing Theory was developed with the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) paradigm. An empirical study was conducted, surveying 583 respondents and analyzing the questionnaire results using structural equation modeling. The results show that media, family, and peer influence (PEI) can effectively activate the consumers' goal frames. Hedonic and normative goals had significant positive influences on GPB, while gain goals had no significant effect. SCC was found to significantly moderate social influence on GPB through the consumers' goal frames. This research provided strong empirical support on understanding the relationship between social influence and GPB through three goal frames. In addition, the potential differences of the GPB formation process in two subgroups (high SCC and low SCC) are also investigated. The results of this study can help green practitioners develop more effective marketing strategies and incentives targeted to consumers with varying levels of environmental consciousness or sensitivity.

Keywords: activation ability; goal-framing theory; green purchasing behavior; sensitivity to climate change; social influence.