Consumer Neuroscience and Sustainable Marketing

Dear Colleagues,

One of the marketing disciplines that has been experiencing exponential growth in recent years is consumer neuroscience, which consists of the application of techniques from psychology, neuroscience and physiology to the study of the neuropsychological origin of consumer attitudes, preferences, intentions and behaviors. Researchers in marketing and psychology are substantially advancing knowledge about the psychological and neural bases of health-communications persuasion, attention and memory triggered by product labeling and prices, as well as the perceived trust and risk in online shopping environments. It is surprising, nevertheless, to discern how most studies omit clarifying the neural and psychological origin of sustainable consumer decisions, a field in which consumer neuroscience can make a difference, as increased attitudes and intentions towards environmental products or messages rarely translate into actual sustainable behaviors.

The objective of this Special Issue is, therefore, to deepen our understanding of the neural and psychophysiological mechanisms underlying the preference for, persuasion for and choice of sustainable products and advertising.  Theoretical and conceptual explorations— as well as methodological and laboratory-based research that makes use of tools such as skin conductance, eye-tracking, electromyography, electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging—are especially welcome. Accordingly, potential manuscript topics may include, but not be limited to:

• Psychological theories that can be used to understand why and how environmentally responsible attitudes and intentions do (not) translate into sustainable purchasing behaviors;
• Psychological differences in the processing of sustainable advertising and products between diverse typologies of consumers, such as consumers with high vs. low environmental awareness or hedonic vs. utilitarian consumers;
• Psychological antecedents that drive consumers’ willingness to implement sustainable behaviors, such as recycling, volunteering with NGOs, donating or buying eco-friendly or fair trade;
• Assessing the ability of neural responses triggered by diverse media elements of environmental advertising to predict ecological behaviors beyond traditional self-reported outcomes;
• The psychological processing of sustainable messages considering the influence of contextual factors that include the type of product (e.g., high or low involvement and luxury or common), the type of purchase (e.g., habitual, sporadic or impulse) and the characteristics of the manufacturer (e.g., size, visibility and business line);
• Individual variables moderating the neuropsychological processing of sustainable advertising and products, such as age, gender, culture or levels of risk-aversion.

References:

1. Casado-Aranda, L.-A., Martínez-Fiestas, M., & Sánchez-Fernández, J. (2018). Neural effects of environmental advertising: An fMRI analysis of voice age and temporal framing. Journal of Environmental Management, 206, 664–675. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.10.006

2. Casado-Aranda, L.-A., Sánchez-Fernández, J., & Montoro-Ríos, F. J. (2017). Neural correlates of voice gender and message framing in advertising: A functional MRI study. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 10(4), 121–136. https://doi.org/10.1037/npe0000076

3. Lee, E.-J., Choi, H., Han, J., Kim, D. H., Ko, E., & Kim, K. H. (2020). How to “Nudge” your consumers toward sustainable fashion consumption: An fMRI investigation. Journal of Business Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.09.050

4. Martínez-Fiestas, M., Isabel Viedma del Jesus, M., Sánchez-Fernandez, J., & Montoro-Ríos, F. (2015). A Psychophysiological Approach for Measuring Response to Messaging: How Consumers Emotionally Process Green Advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 55(2), 192. https://doi.org/10.2501/JAR-55-2-192-205

5. Vezich, I. S., Gunter, B. C., & Lieberman, M. D. (2017). The mere green effect: An fMRI study of pro-environmental advertisements. Social Neuroscience, 12(4), 400–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2016.1182587

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• consumer neuroscience
• neuromarketing
• environmental advertising
• sustainable products
• ecological behavior
• neuropsychological mechanisms
• fMRI
• EEG
• skin conductance
• eye tracking