Nature-love and sustainable consumption behaviors: does the construal level of psychological distance matter?
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the importance of emotional variables in shaping individuals' consumption behavior, nature-love still needs to be addressed concerning various aspects of sustainable consumption behavior (SCB). Considering the dimensions of nature-love, this study aims to investigate the effect of passion-for-nature, intimacy-with-nature and commitment-to-nature on SCB. Furthermore, this study aims to incorporate the construal levels of psychological distance (PD) as a moderating variable between the tested variables to add a more in-depth understanding.
Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected from a sample of 311 individuals from Egypt using the snowball sampling method and the ten-time rule technique. The data was analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
The findings indicate that passion-for-nature and intimacy-with-nature have a significant positive effect on green purchasing, reusability and recycling. On the other hand, commitment-to-nature has a significant positive effect on both green purchasing and reusability. Additionally, a high PD acts as a moderator between the relationships tested. The findings have been discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to integrate PD as a moderator between the relationships tested. Additionally, this paper is the first empirical research investigating these relationships in developing economies.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Since acceptance of this article, the following author(s) have updated their affiliation(s): Mohamed M. Elsotouhy is at the Higher Institute of Commercial Science, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, Egypt.
Funding: The authors declare that no funds, grants or other supports were received during the preparation of this manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Citation
Elsotouhy, M.M., Ghonim, M.A., Khalifa, N. and Khashan, M.A. (2023), "Nature-love and sustainable consumption behaviors: does the construal level of psychological distance matter?", EuroMed Journal of Business, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/EMJB-03-2023-0091
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited