Authors: Vaia Zacharaki, ERIFILI-CHRISTINA Chatzopoulou, George Papagiannakis

Title: UNDERSTANDING THE MOTIVES BEHIND CONSUMERS’ PREFERENCE FOR PRODUCTS WITH ENVIRONMENTAL ATTRIBUTES

Abstract

Research has shown that a significant part of consumers turn towards products with environmental attributes. This behavior may be attributed either to consumers’ social-altruistic values that promote environmental actions regardless of the economic or lifestyle implications of such actions (ecocentric values), or to consumers’ predisposition to be concerned for the environment when environmental changes have a direct impact on their health, comfort or quality of life (anthropocentric values). Understanding that consumers’ preferences are driven by at least two types of motives has prompted researchers to investigate the effect of motives on consumers’ behavior. However, while there are many studies on the isolated impact of predispositions on consumers’ purchase behavior, research on the combined effect of different motives, has been scant, in comparison. The present study intends to contribute to this line of research by examining whether consumers prefer green products due to their environmental benefits, due to their benefits for consumers’ own lives, or both. To this end, an experiment was conducted using a sample of undergraduate students in Greece. After statistical analysis of the experiment data, there seems that the environmental benefits, although significant, are pushed to the background, while consumers prioritize the financial gains associated with such purchases.