Rejection And Neglect:The Impact Of Social Exclusion Types On Consumers’ Purchase Intentions Of Green Products

With the high-quality development and operation of society,the concept of "environmental protection" has increasingly become a new trend of global development.In order to alleviate China’s increasingly serious ecological problems,low-carbon consumption represented by green products as a very important part of it has gradually attracted extensive attention from all walks of life.How to promote green consumption activities has become an important topic that both academic and practical circles are concerned about.At the same time,in practice,it is found that consumers’ green consumption behavior is not only an individual behavior but also a group behavior.That is,consumers’ green consumption behavior is also a manifestation of social identity,and when this social identity demand is not met,the so-called social exclusion phenomenon will occur.However,there are still a large number of research gaps in existing research on the effects of social exclusion,especially different types of social exclusion,on green consumption behavior.In the scenario of social exclusion,will consumers’ green consumption behavior be affected by it? How does it affect? Will different levels of social exclusion differ in the purchase intention of green products? Whether there will be special favors for green products of a certain attribute,etc.,is the question that this study attempts to discuss.The discussion of this issue has very important theoretical and practical significance.Firstly,a dual-path model is constructed to explore the influence of social exclusion types(neglect vs.rejection)on consumers’ purchase intention of green products,and to analyze the product segmentation problem used due to social exclusion by studying the types of social exclusion faced by consumers.Secondly,the mediating effect of belonging demand and show-off demand on consumers’ purchase intention of green products in the type of social exclusion is discussed,which not only enriches the previous research,but also reminds major manufacturers and enterprises to take into account the psychological state of target consumers when formulating green product marketing strategies.Finally,from the perspective of self-discrepancy,the types of social exclusion such as different degrees of neglect and rejection,and the differences between consumers’ purchase intentions for green products are discussed,which can not only increase manufacturers’ control of green consumption situations,so that green marketing strategies can be implemented more effectively,but also give reference ideas in advertising strategy,experience marketing and brand positioning.Based on the importance of these questions,this study breaks them down into several research questions,and through one pre-experiment and four formal experiments,the following conclusions are drawn: first: individuals who are rejected and ignored by others have a higher purchase intention for green products than individuals who are accepted by others(H1);Second: different types of social exclusion(rejection and neglect)have significant differences in the purchase intention of green products(implicit and explicit)with different attributes,that is,consumers rejected by others have higher purchase intention(H2a)for implicit green products,and consumers who are ignored by others have higher purchase intention(H2b)for explicit consumer goods;Third: the mediation mechanism of attribution motivation and show-off motivation is verified,that is,attribution motive plays a mediating role in the purchase intention of rejected and implicit green products(H3),and the motive to show off plays a mediating role in the purchase intention of neglected and explicit green products(H4);Fourth:Self-differentiation is selected as the boundary condition between social exclusion and green product purchase intention,and the results showed that self-difference moderated between social exclusion and purchase intention of green products(H5).And when the self-difference is high,consumers who are rejected and ignored by others will have a significant purchase intention of explicit green products(H5a);When the self-difference is low,consumers who are rejected by others will have significant implicit green product purchase intention,while consumers who are ignored by others will have significant explicit green product purchase intention(H5b).These conclusions provide useful reference and enlightenment for marketers and enterprises to choose green products with corresponding attributes in the face of different social exclusion situations,and to pay attention to the needs of consumers under various threats.This study has the following aspects in theoretical innovation: First,this paper expands the research perspective from the study of consumers’ preference for green products to the study of consumers’ preference for green products with different attributes,and compares the purchase differences between implicit green products and explicit green products for consumers who are excluded by different types of society.Second,the differences in the moderating effect of self-differentiation in different types of social exclusion on the purchase intention of green products of different attributes are innovatively explored.To some extent,it fills the gaps in existing research.Third,the existing research discusses the impact on the purchase intention of green products from multiple perspectives such as consumers and social environment,introduces different types of social exclusion,and discusses the mechanism of their influence on consumers’ purchase intention of green products,which provides new ideas for business context marketing.Finally,social recognition and social exclusion are like two sides of the same coin,we discussed the relationship between social exclusion and consumer purchasing behavior in 5 studies,because in real life,businesses also have a lot of social exclusion,we believe that there are real-life cases have its research value,so this study discusses it and the effect of green consumption behavior from the other side of social identity social exclusion,on the other hand,enriches the relevant conclusions of social identity theory,on the other hand,It can also provide lessons for persuading companies to reduce their social exclusion in marketing.