Research on the influence mechanism of environmental protection concept on consumption in the context of climate neutrality

Abstract

In the context of climate and neutrality, governments of many countries have introduced plastic restrictions. Enterprises often introduce pro-environmental services with certain force to the market. Does a good intention always have a good result? Despite good intentions, most pro-environmental services require extra effort (financial, physical, mental, etc.) from the participants. This will inevitably bring negative impact on some customers’ repurchase intention. How to mitigate its negative consequences is worthy of academic attention. Previous studies show that sense of guilt motivates individuals to take prosocial actions to relieve or counteract temporary negative emotions. This paper analyzed and explained the affective mechanism of this phenomenon through two between-subject experiments. The results showed that: (1) High-autonomy effort (different from low-autonomy effort) can significantly release the sense of reactive guilt hence promote repurchase intention; (2) Low-autonomy effort (different from high-autonomy effort) will reduce people’s perceived pleasure hence suppress repurchase intention; (3) Choice diversification can improve the perceived autonomy of individuals with low actual autonomy and compensate for the lack of actual autonomy, thus weakening the negative impact of low autonomous effort on perceived pleasure, and ultimately promoting people’s repurchase intention.