ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2025, Vol. 57 ›› Issue (4): 720-738.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2025.0720 cstr: 32110.14.2025.0720

• 亲社会行为专刊(2) • 上一篇    

拟人的品牌更环保?拟人化沟通对促进绿色消费倾向的影响

冯文婷1, 薛舒允2, 汪涛3()   

  1. 1中国地质大学〔武汉〕珠宝学院, 武汉 430074
    2中国地质大学〔武汉〕教育研究院心理科学与健康研究中心, 武汉 430074
    3武汉大学经济与管理学院组织营销研究中心, 武汉 430072
  • 收稿日期:2023-09-30 发布日期:2025-02-06 出版日期:2025-04-25
  • 通讯作者: 汪涛, E-mail: wangtao@whu.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    国家社会科学基金项目(24BGL117)

Anthropomorphic brands are more eco-friendly? The impact of anthropomorphic communication on green consumption tendency

FENG Wenting1, XUE Shuyun2, WANG Tao3()   

  1. 1Gemmological Institute, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, China
    2Research Center for Psychological and Health Sciences, Educational Research Institute, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, China
    3Research Center for Organizational Marketing, Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
  • Received:2023-09-30 Online:2025-02-06 Published:2025-04-25

摘要:

越来越多的企业采用品牌拟人化沟通的方式进行品牌传播, 促进绿色消费倾向。本研究将基于习得可评估性理论, 探索品牌拟人化沟通对绿色消费倾向的影响机制及边界条件。本研究共包含4个实验。实验1表明品牌拟人化沟通能够有效促进绿色消费倾向, 构建了从品牌拟人化沟通到习得可评估性到品牌环保价值敏感性再到绿色消费倾向的完整因果链。实验2界定主效应的边界, 发现相比于普通品牌, 主效应在绿色品牌情境中更显著, 再次验证主效应的理论逻辑。实验3分析了消费者动机类型(利己/利他)对主效应的调节作用。结果表明,当消费者利他动机被激发时, 品牌拟人化沟通能够显著地促进绿色消费倾向, 当消费者利己动机被激发时, 品牌拟人化沟通不会影响绿色消费倾向。实验4验证了产品类型(搜索品/体验品)对主效应的调节作用。结果表明当产品类型为搜索品时,品牌拟人化沟通能够显著地促进绿色消费倾向, 当产品类型为体验品时, 品牌拟人化沟通不会影响绿色消费倾向。本研究拓展了品牌拟人化沟通以及绿色消费相关领域的研究。

关键词: 品牌拟人化沟通, 绿色消费倾向, 环保价值敏感性, 习得可评估性理论

Abstract:

As environmental issues become increasingly severe, promoting green consumption has emerged as an important pathway for sustainable development. However, consumers often lack expertise regarding eco-friendly products, which leads to skepticism about their environmental value and the actual impact of their green consumption, resulting in a low willingness to engage in such behaviors. While existing research has examined the influence of the environmental information communicated by brands on consumers' green consumption tendencies, it has frequently overlooked strategies to enhance consumers' effective assessment of this information. With the rise of social media, brands have made notable progress in conveying environmental information through anthropomorphic communication. Nevertheless, further exploration is needed to understand how this approach can positively influence consumers' green consumption tendencies and the underlying mechanisms involved. Drawing on learned evaluability theory, we analyze the impact of brand anthropomorphic communication on green consumption tendencies from a cognitive processing perspective, aiming to provide insights into the future development of green markets.

This research involves four experiments. Experiment 1 validates that brand anthropomorphic communication can effectively promote green consumption tendencies and confirms the mediating role of environmental value sensitivity in the relationship between anthropomorphic communication and green consumption tendencies; this constructs a complete causal chain that links anthropomorphic communication to learned evaluability, then to environmental value sensitivity, and finally to green consumption tendencies. Experiment 2 delineates the boundaries of the main effect, revealing that the impact of anthropomorphic communication on consumption tendencies is more pronounced in the context of green consumption. Experiment 3 examines the moderating effect of consumer motivation type (egoistic vs. altruistic) on the main effect. Experiment 4 investigates the moderating role of product type (search products vs. experience products) on the main effect.

The findings indicate that brands employing anthropomorphic communication can increase consumers' learned evaluability, thereby increasing their sensitivity to the brand's environmental value and ultimately promoting their green consumption tendencies. When consumers' altruistic motivation is activated, anthropomorphic communication significantly increases their green consumption tendencies; conversely, when egoistic motivation is activated, no significant effect is observed. Additionally, when the product is a search product, anthropomorphic communication significantly promotes green consumption tendencies, whereas this effect is not evident for experience products. These insights offer new perspectives on the application of anthropomorphic communication strategies, highlighting the importance of consumer motivation and product type in brand communication.

This study makes a series of theoretical contributions. First, it enriches the literature on the influence of anthropomorphic communication on green consumption tendencies and elucidates how this communication affects such tendencies. Second, this study is the first to apply learned evaluability theory to explain the influence of anthropomorphic communication on green consumption tendencies, revealing a novel process by which environmental value sensitivity is triggered. Furthermore, the findings confirm the moderating effects of product type and motivation type, establishing explicit boundary conditions.

Key words: brand anthropomorphic communication, green consumption tendency, environmental value sensitivity, learned evaluability theory

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