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Based on the stimuli-organism-response (SOR) theory, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate the impact of consumers’ engagement in pro-environment activities on social media on consumer green consumption behaviour, and explore the explicatory mechanism and boundary conditions for the relationship between them.

This study collected data from 312 Chinese consumers by using the research platform Credamo, a Chinese online survey platform. A structural equation model and hierarchical regression modelling were used to analyse the data.

Consumers’ engagement in pro-environmental activities on social media has a positive influence on environmental awareness that positively affects green consumption behaviour. Environmental awareness plays a mediating role in the relationship between consumers’ engagement in pro-environmental activities on social media and green consumption behaviour. Furthermore, green intrinsic motivation and green extrinsic motivation play positive and negative regulating roles respectively in the relationship between environmental awareness and green consumption behaviour.

This study enriches the research on the antecedent variables of green consumption behaviour. At the same time, it also expands the research on the outcome variables of the impact of engagement in environmental protection activities on people’s subsequent behaviour, deepens and expands the research on green consumption behaviour and its applicable boundaries, offering both theoretical insights and practical implications for enterprise marketing strategies and government management.

This paper aims to examine the effects of both transient and chronic loneliness on consumers’ variety-seeking (VS) behavior and to identify the various underlying mechanisms involved.

Four studies were adopted to clarify how transient and chronic loneliness affect consumers’ VS behavior.

Both transient and chronic loneliness promote consumers’ VS behavior. More importantly, the effect of transient loneliness on VS behavior is driven by perceived loss of control, whereas the effect of chronic loneliness on VS behavior is driven by need for uniqueness and sensation-seeking.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to explore the differential roles of transient and chronic loneliness on VS behavior, which may open new avenues for future research. First, future research could investigate moderators that influence the impacts of transient and chronic loneliness on VS behavior. Second, future research could examine different participant populations and use cognitive neuroscience techniques to further verify the differential roles of these two types of loneliness on VS behavior.

This research contributes to marketing practice by providing practical guidance on how to effectively design different marketing strategies to promote VS for consumers with different types of loneliness. For consumers with transient loneliness, marketers can benefit from a concerted focus on improving consumers’ sense of control. Yet, for consumers with chronic loneliness, marketing strategies that improve consumers’ need for uniqueness will be more effective.

This research contributes to the literature on loneliness and consumer behavior, which has largely overlooked the distinct roles of different types of loneliness (i.e. transient vs chronic loneliness) in influencing consumer behavior. Specifically, this paper conducted a comparative analysis of the impacts of transient and chronic loneliness on consumers’ VS behavior and proposed that transient and chronic loneliness promote consumers’ VS behavior through divergent underlying mechanisms.