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People engage in green consumption for many reasons, both conscious and unconscious. This paper aims to draw on evolutionary psychology to propose that hard-wired mating strategies encourage both men and women to increase their green consumption in the presence of members of the opposite sex.

Observations were conducted on 324 students who purchased cold drinks in disposable cups from a college café. The students were offered the choice of adding 20 cents to their purchase for a bio-degradable cup.

Overall, 160 students agreed to pay the premium for a bio-degradable cup, with green purchases 46 per cent higher among women and 61 per cent higher among men when facing a cashier of the opposite sex.

The findings suggest that the activation of mating cues prompts students to display prosocial, altruistic behavior and/or to engage in conspicuous consumption (i.e. agreeing to pay more for the sustainable product). The study was conducted in the field using naïve participants and demonstrates the application of evolutionary psychology to green marketing. It also adds to what is a surprisingly small literature on the effect of employee–customer gender mismatch.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between three personality traits (individualism, materialism and the “need for cognition”) and two characteristics of shoppers who buy private‐label brands (their predisposition to do so, and the importance they attach to the “brand dimensions”) across four member countries of the Union of the Mediterranean.

A questionnaire in the local language, using questions, items and scales adapted from previous studies, was completed by 683 undergraduate students. The scaled data were analysed by SPSS, and tested for internal reliability and equivalence.

Overall, the personality traits were significantly associated with both behavioural characteristics. Specifically, materialism and the need for cognition were linked to inclination to purchase private brands, and materialism and individualism to the perceived importance of brand dimensions. Cross‐cultural differences were found.

The demographic profile of the private‐brand consumer is well known, but not the behavioural profile. This study provides retail planners with valuable new marketing intelligence.

Store branding has gained much attention from branding researchers, including studies of market segmentation. However, the psychological profile of the store brand consumer is still obscure. The present study investigated the role of “need for cognition” (NFC) in purchasing store brands.

Participants were 400 students from eight colleges in Israel. The participants represented four cultural groups of different mother tongues: Amharic, Arabic, Hebrew and Russian. All participants reported demographics, NFC, inclination to purchase store brands and the perceived importance of extrinsic brand dimensions (e.g. packaging, country of origin and manufacturer identity).

NFC was positively associated with the inclination to purchase store brands, even after controlling for demographic variables. NFC was negatively associated with the importance attributed to extrinsic brand dimensions.

Retailers should aim store brands towards consumers with high NFC. In cultures characterized by a lower NFC level, marketing strategies should focus on extrinsic brand image dimensions rather than intrinsic ones.

While many studies have researched the demographic characteristics of the store brand consumer, there is little data regarding his psychological profile. The present study illuminates the role of NFC as one psychological trait that enhances the inclination to purchase store brands. In addition, the study employs a multi‐cultural sample of four cultural groups living in Israel, thus increasing the generalisability of the results.

This research is designed to characterize new generic consumers and assess their willingness to purchase generic brands in non‐generic product categories.

A total of 500 generic consumers participated in the study. Participants were customers of two large private chain stores in central Israel, known for their abundance of generic products.

the paper finds that new generic consumers have a somewhat different profile than that of generic consumers of the 1980s. Furthermore, generic consumers are prepared to purchase generic brands even in categories not defined as generic.

The study focused on a market characterized by economic instability, which may contribute to strong readiness to purchase generic brands even in product categories not generic by definition. Future research is needed to study the profile of the new generic consumer from the perspective of cultural differences among countries and not within countries.

The willingness of generic brand marketers and retailers to enter product categories not defined as generic will open new business avenues and a create a relative advantage for them over their competitors, while guaranteeing a larger market segment and an increased volume of sales in the short term.

This research is the only one which has examined generic brand consumers' buying power, on four types of buying behaviors based on the degree of buyer involvement and the degree of differentiation among brands.

The present study has three aims: to find out whether individualism affects consumers' preference for private versus national brands; to assess the effect of individualism on the perceived importance of brand image dimensions (country‐of origin, packaging design and manufacturer reputation); and to assess the degree of cross‐cultural differences in individualism within a specific country, Israel.

A total of 400 private brand customers participated in the study. Participants were students from eight universities and colleges in Israel. Students were carefully chosen to represent diverse cultural groups, based on their mother tongue: 100 students were native speakers of Arabic, 100 native speakers of Russian, 100 native speakers of Amharic and 100 native speakers of Hebrew.

Individualism predicted the inclination to purchase store brands better than demographic variables such as age, sex and income. Culture affected the importance of country of origin, and moderated the effect of individualism on the importance of manufacturer identity..

The paper documents research that is unique in studying psycho‐behavioral aspects of private brand consumers from the perspective of cultural differences, a venture that has rarely been taken in the past.

Gender is one of the most common forms of segmentation used by marketers. However, not enough data on gender differences has been collected in the field of consumer behavior. Based on tenets from evolutionary psychology, the purpose of this paper is to hypothesize that in comparison to men, women will report higher levels of brand commitment, hedonic consumption, and impulse buying.

In total, 257 students (153 males and 104 females; M age=29.9, SD=6.7) completed questionnaires.

As hypothesized, women had higher levels of brand commitment (t(254)=2.32, p < 0.05, Cohen's d=0.31), hedonic consumption (t(254)=4.19, p < 0.01, Cohen's d=0.53), and impulse buying in comparison to men.

The study was conducted on shopping in general, while gender differences may be product‐dependent.

Since women have higher levels of brand commitment than men, retailers should promote high quality brands for their female customers. Since women have higher levels of impulse buying in comparison to men, and since impulse buying is triggered by sensual cues, retailers can accentuate sensory cues in stores whose products tend to appeal to women. For example, sale assistants might encourage women to touch products, so they can experience the product tactilely as well as visually. On‐site ads and pop displays should have a stronger impact in women's departments, due to increased impulse buying.

Gender differences in consumer behavior, though recognized as an important topic, have attracted only limited research attention. This paper helps fill that gap while incorporating an evolutionary viewpoint, which is emerging as a valuable theoretical perspective in the field of marketing.