Abstract: Promoting consumers’ pro-environmental behavior has become a prominent research topic in recent years. Prior studies have largely concentrated on the antecedents and interventions that shape pro-environmental behavioral intentions, while paying limited attention to the possibility that individuals’ actual behavioral outcomes may deviate from their intentions. Building on this gap, the present research proposes Behavioral Intention-Outcome Inconsistency Effects in consumers’ pro-environmental behavior and develops a series of studies to explain when and why subjective intentions diverge from objective outcomes.
Specifically, the study approaches this issue from the perspective of motivational conflicts in social dilemmas, examining three motivational dimensions: Efficiency, Greed and Fairness considerations, which are based on the GEF theory. It further elaborates three corresponding research propositions: the green efficacy illusion effect, the novelty-evoked rejection effect, and the bystander misattribution effect, and proposes targeted interventions based on these mechanisms.
Study 1 focuses on environmental efficiency considerations, examining how consumers evaluate the extent to which pro-environmental behaviors or products generate actual environmental outcomes. Although individuals may accurately assess the environmental efficacy of a single pro-environmental option in isolation, the marketplace often offers multiple substitutable green alternatives. When processing such complex choice sets, consumers are prone to judgment biases that lead them to overestimate whether their decisions have achieved meaningful environmental outcomes. This misperception gives rise to the green efficacy illusion effect, whereby consumers mistakenly believe that their chosen behaviors or products have generated substantial environmental benefits, thereby creating an intention-outcome inconsistency.
Study 2 focuses on greed considerations. Within this dimension, two opposing biases may arise: consumers may underestimate the personal benefits of pro-environmental products, or they may overestimate or misjudge their potential personal costs. The present research focuses on the latter bias. Specifically, green products based on new technologies or novel concepts may appear unfamiliar to consumers, triggering rejection driven by prior experiences and affective intuitions. Even when such products convey clear and credible quality signals and consumers acknowledge their environmental efficacy, they may still be irrationally rejected due to experiential or emotional heuristics. This bias gives rise to the novelty-evoked rejection effect, resulting in a behavioral intention-outcome inconsistency between consumers’ pro-environmental intentions and the actual outcomes of their choice.
Study 3 focuses on the fairness considerations. In pro-environmental contexts, perceptions of fairness primarily stem from the equitable allocation of responsibility and the fair distribution of benefits. Focusing on responsibility attribution, this study argues that because pro-environmental behaviors often entail personal costs, consumers may exhibit self-serving bias and erroneously shift responsibility onto others, unjustly blaming bystanders who bear little or no responsibility. This pattern reflects the bystander misattribution effect, ultimately generating a behavioral intention-outcome inconsistency in pro-environmental behavior.
This research advances the literature on consumer pro-environmental behavior by shifting attention to the divergence between subjective intentions and objective behavioral outcomes. The proposed behavioral intention-outcome inconsistency effect offers a new conceptual lens for understanding this divergence. From this perspective, not only the effects identified in the present research, but also a wide range of related phenomena, warrant further investigation, opening promising avenues for future inquiry. Moreover, this study adopts an integrative theoretical approach rather than relying on a single framework. Insights from social dilemma theory highlight the tension between individual and collective interests. Cognitive bias theory explains systematic errors in judgment and decision making. Together, these perspectives form a unified explanatory model of behavioral intention-outcome inconsistency. This framework clarifies the psychological mechanisms underlying the gap between pro-environmental intentions and actual environmental impact and provides a more comprehensive account of inconsistency in pro-environmental behavior.
Finally in terms of practical application the study translates its theoretical insights into actionable managerial strategies. By pinpointing the core psychological causes of behavioral intention-outcome inconsistency in green consumption, this research enables practitioners to design targeted, multifaceted interventions that address individual-level cognitive barriers, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of sustainability initiatives and bringing green consumption closer to its intended environmental goals.

Key words: pro-environmental behavior, psychological resistance, behavioral intention-outcome inconsistency, cognitive bias, social dilemma