Predicting sustainable consumption behavior: knowledge-based, value-based, emotional and rational influences on mobile phone, food and fashion consumption

Abstract

Increasing sustainable consumption practices of individuals constitutes a crucial pillar of the global sustainable development strategy. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine psychological influences from different research streams and their incremental predictive value for sustainable consumption. In two studies, knowledge-based, value-based, emotional and rational factors were considered to predict sustainable consumption behavior of mobile phones, food and fashion. Survey data were obtained from an online panel (Study 1: N = 101, Study 2: N = 304). Multiple regression results showed that value-based, emotional and rational factors contributed significantly to the prediction of sustainable consumption in both studies and all product groups. Problem awareness was a significant predictor only for food consumption. To improve the explained variance and detect different patterns of prediction, influencing factors were included into the prediction in varying order. Hierarchical regression results showed that a joint consideration of factors from different theoretical streams improved the prediction and that product-specific patterns emerged. The findings support the need to jointly consider different influencing factors for the prediction of sustainable consumption. Understanding the drivers and obstacles of sustainable consumption constitutes the basis for educational measures or marketing interventions. The present study contributes to gaining product-specific knowledge which is pivotal for tailoring such measures to different consumption areas.