Social exclusion and green consumption: The multi-motive theory approach

Abstract

Household consumption accounting to more than 70% of global GHG emissions is an indication to where sustainable policies should focus their efforts toward a sustainable world. Indeed, one of the tools suggested by governments in their "policies to encourage sustainable consumption" is behavioral approaches. Within this regard, how psychological consequences of social exclusion relate with green consumption is much studied. For example, recent studies adopted costly signaling theory and social belongingness hypothesis to predict green consumption after events of social exclu-sion/inclusion. Such studies rely heavily on the default view of "humans as social ani-mals" without adequately accounting for the role of motives. Using multi-motive theory, we show how construals like "perceived importance of a relationship" and traits like "fear of negative evaluation" play a role in the relationship between social exclusion and green consumption. In addition, we develop and report a 20 items reliable and valid multidimensional measure for green consumption.