2.1. Green Purchase Behavior
Green purchase behavior refers to purchasing environmentally friendly products that can be recycled, which is advantageous to the natural environment [
20]. A large number of studies have shown that the motivation for green purchase behavior is gradually increasing [
21,
22,
23]. Previous studies have shown that the factors affecting green purchase behavior mainly include the following four aspects:
- (1)
Cognitive, Psychological, and Sociodemographic
Studies of the determinants of green purchasing regarding cognitive, psychological, and socio-demographic factors are the most commonly found in the literature. Chan and Lau [
24] examined the impact of ecological knowledge, cultural values, and environmental affect; their results showed that there is a positive effect of the three factors, with great emphasis on environmental knowledge and the ecological impact on consumer’s intention to buy green products, so that the more the consumer enjoys environmental knowledge, the greater their orientation towards purchasing green products. The study by Lee [
25] discussed the effect of gender on enhancing purchase intentions; the results of his research showed that females tend to buy green products more than males. It should be noted that the studies that discussed the personal characteristics of the consumer, such as age, gender, education, knowledge, and income level, came first, which confirms the association of green purchasing with the theory of planned behavior, which has been broadly used in the literature.
In addition, we have noticed that there has been a development in studies in that they have begun discussing the demographic factors directly related to the consumer. In some recent studies, they started using other characteristics, such as Liang et al. [
26], who investigated pride, gratitude, guilt, and condemnation of others as the main factors in determining a consumer’s intention to buy green products. The study showed that the feelings of pride and gratitude, as factors that fall within the positive emotions of the consumer, enhance the purposes of green purchasing. On the other hand, negative feelings, such as the condemnation of others and guilt, moderate purchase intention. The study concluded that the availability of purposes related to avoiding environmental pollution enhances the sense of green purchasing.
On the other hand, some studies have differences in determining the influence of factors, whether positive, negative, or no effect, such as Jaini et al. [
27], in which the result of their study showed that altruism has no impact, while the study by Jaini et al. [
28] found that it impacts beliefs that support the environment, which ultimately affects the consumer’s personal behavior.
- (2)
Product Attributes
Some research findings suggest that price and packaging are among the most significant factors that encourage consumers to purchase green products. Weisstein et al. [
29] investigated the effect of the product’s price on the tendency to buy green products. The results showed that different offers for product prices positively affects the intention and perceptions of consumers to purchase green products, as promotional offers that result in gains affect consumers interested in green products. In contrast, consumers who do not enjoy a high degree of green are attracted to promotional offers that decrease losses.
Martinho et al. [
30] investigated the effect of the packaging of a product on the propensity to purchase green products. The results showed the presence of two groups of consumers: the first group is interested in packaging, whereas the second group considers packaging nonessential when making a purchase decision. Other studies discussed the role of other factors in marketing green products, such as advertising [
31].
- (3)
Consequence Design of Products
To attract consumers to buy environmentally friendly green products, there must be a different design. Product design is one of the main factors contributing to promoting green products, such as sustainable designs, which express the philosophy of designing products and services compatible with the principles of environmental sustainability. Martinho et al. [
30] believed that a large group of surveyed consumers showed an interest in sustainable, environmentally friendly packaging. Therefore, one of the essential points that may encourage the consumer to buy green products is the perceived intensity at the moment of purchase over packaging and design, which is more critical than the actual input intensity [
32]. Maslow’s theory shows that consumers who are self-sufficient in basic needs always seek satisfaction in achieving sufficiency from other conditions, such as material and luxury needs associated with sustainability [
33]. Thus, the importance of product design in a way that shows environmental protection may enhance the attraction of consumers to purchase. It can be said that there are different ways through which advertising calls to buy green products can be practiced, such as describing the features and characteristics of the product in a more subjective or general way, or describing the attributes and characteristics of the product in an objective and detailed manner through tangible attractiveness [
34]. According to a study by Yang et al. [
35], advertising related to tangible attractiveness is less effective than the abstract attractiveness method based on describing the product in general or subjectively when the characteristics and attributes of green products are related to consumers and their interests. Therefore, companies are obligated to clarify the importance of environmental protection for green products and show the company design to show their value and personality in a way that distinguishes between traditional products and green products. On the other hand, the results of some studies indicate that product design may significantly enhance competition, survival, and continuity in the market and determine the company’s success by identifying the need and satisfying consumers’ desires [
36].
- (4)
Social and Environmental Factors
Dagher and Itani [
37], who discussed the impact of perceived effectiveness of environmental behavior, sensed environmental responsibility, perceived seriousness of environmental issues, and concern for self-image in environmental protection on green purchasing choices. The study results showed an effect of perceived environmental responsibility, perceived seriousness of environmental problems, and concern for self-image in environmental protection green purchasing intentions. On the other hand, the results showed no effect of perceived effectiveness of environmental behavior on green purchasing intentions. The results of a study by Uddin and Khan [
38] found a positive impact on the perceived usefulness of environmental behavior on green purchasing, as the evidence provided by Visser and Dlamini [
39] showed no significant effect of environmental attitude and environmental knowledge on green purchase intentions. On the contrary, the study results by Goh and Balaji [
40] showed that environmental knowledge plays a significant mediating role in promoting green purchasing intentions. What is more, some scholars believe that consumers’ environmental commitment has a positive impact on their green purchase behavior [
8,
41,
42], while others suggest that environmental commitment cannot predict consumers’ green purchase intention [
9].
Therefore, there is no consensus about whether environmental commitment can promote consumers’ green purchase behavior. Currently, the relevant studies mostly focus on whether environmental commitment has an impact on consumers’ green purchase behavior [
8,
9,
41,
42], with a clear lack of research on its internal influence mechanism. Additionally, in recent years, most research studies on green purchasing were concentrated in developed countries, with limited research conducted in developing countries [
12]. Therefore, it is of great importance to study the internal influence mechanism of environmental commitment on consumers’ green purchase behavior in China.
2.2. Environmental Commitment and Green Purchase Behavior
Environmental commitment is psychological attachment to and long-term orientation toward the natural world [
7]. Green purchase behavior is a pro-environmental behavior since the action enhances the quality of the environment through purchase decisions that reduce environmental problems arising from unsustainable production and consumption [
43]. Previous research has demonstrated that environmental commitment promotes consumers’ pro-environmental behavior. Rahman and Reynolds [
41] found that consumers’ environmental commitment significantly affects their choice of hotels, and consumers with high environmental commitment tend to choose green hotels. In Hergesell’s study [
42], travelers with high environmental commitment tend to choose public transportation during their travels; they pay more attention to the impact of their behavior on the environment. Liu and Lin [
44] believed that Taiwanese college students with higher environmental commitment show more attention and greater willingness to protecting the environment. Davis et al. [
45] pointed out that individuals with high environmental satisfaction and investment are more likely to have high environmental commitment, which further urges them to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors. Terrier and Marfaing [
46] suggested that environmental commitment tends to strengthen individuals’ perceptions of themselves, thus motivating them to become environmentally friendly individuals. Therefore, an individual’s environmental commitment is a significant factor influencing green purchase behavior that is beneficial to the environment. When individuals have higher environmental commitment, they can feel a closer relationship with nature, and realize that their behaviors have an impact on the environment, thereby choosing to follow a more environmentally friendly consumption behavior, such as green purchasing. Hence, we propose the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1 (H1). Environmental commitment is positively associated with green purchase behavior.
2.3. The Mediating Role of Anticipated Pride and Anticipated Guilt
When making decisions, people often anticipate how they will feel about future outcomes and use those feelings as guides to choices. Anticipated emotions are more intense than those actually experienced afterwards [
45]. Studies have found that anticipated emotions affect behaviors [
47], because individuals will strive to experience positive emotions and avoid negative ones [
48].
Pride and guilt, known as self-conscious emotions [
49,
50], arise from evaluations of oneself after following (or failing to follow) personal or social standards [
49]. These personal and social standards are often based on moral behavior, and the subsequent self-conscious emotions elicited by these standards stimulate altruistic behavior [
51]. Current research maintains a discrete emotional perspective [
52]; that is, pride and guilt are not two extremes of one emotion, but two different emotions that need to be measured separately.
Previous research has shown that emotions influence individuals’ pro-environmental behavior. For example, Mi et al. [
53] studied the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the public’s pro-environmental behavior and found that positive emotions and negative emotions as mediating variables can significantly promote the public’s pro-environmental behavior. Mi et al. [
54] argued that the anticipated pride and anticipated guilt can obviously affect employees’ pro-environmental behavior in the workplace. Bissing-Olson et al. [
55] put forward that pride has a significant positive impact on pro-environmental behavior. Rosenthal and Ho [
56] confirmed that anticipated negative emotions positively influence residents’ pro-environmental behaviors, such as littering or picking up garbage. Liang et al. [
26] demonstrated that positive emotions (such as pride) and negative emotions (such as guilt) can have a significant effect on consumers’ green purchase behavior.
In Norm Activation Theory, personal norms represent an internalized behavior standard. Individuals will feel proud when they follow personal norms, and guilty when they violate personal norms [
57]. Environmental commitment, as an embodiment of personal norms in the pro-environmental domain, stimulates individuals to form anticipated pride and anticipated guilt. For consumers, the higher the environmental commitment, the more they will be aware of the close connection between themselves and the natural environment, and thus be more aware of environmental protection and the impact of green purchase behavior on the environment. When consumers expect that they implement green purchase behavior, they realize that they will do something beneficial to the environment, thus resulting in a stronger sense of anticipated pride. In the case of non-green purchase behavior, consumers realize that their consumption behavior will have a certain adverse impact on the environment, thus resulting in a stronger sense of anticipated guilt. All of these will promote consumers to adjust their emotions, increase positive emotions (pride), and avoid negative emotions (guilt), so that they are more likely to carry out green purchase behavior. Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 2 (H2). Environmental commitment is positively associated with anticipated pride.
Hypothesis 3 (H3). Environmental commitment is positively associated with anticipated guilt.
Hypothesis 4 (H4). Anticipated pride is positively associated with green purchase behavior.
Hypothesis 5 (H5). Anticipated guilt is positively associated with green purchase behavior.
2.4. The Moderating Role of Social Norms
Social norms refer to the common or the majority’s behavior in a group [
57,
58,
59]. According to Norm Activation Theory, social norms, as external norms, have an impact on an individual’s internal norms and emotions, and individuals tend to conform to the social norms [
60,
61]. In the context of green purchase behavior: At a high level of the social norms, consumers perceive that most people choose to buy green products. When consumers expect to buy green products, they meet their expectations and follow social norms. Consumers realize that what they do is beneficial to the environment and in line with norms, thus resulting in a stronger sense of anticipated pride. When consumers choose not to buy green products, they feel that they fail to live up to their expectations and violate social norms. Consumers realize that what they do is harmful to the environment and goes against norms, thus resulting in a stronger sense of anticipated guilt. At a low level of social norms, consumers perceive that most people choose not to buy green products. When consumers expect to buy green products, although their actions are beneficial to the environment, they violate social norms. They feel that it makes most people to think they deliberately show off or break group norms, thus resulting in a weaker sense of anticipated pride. When consumers expect not to buy green products, although their actions are harmful to the environment, they follow social norms and are consistent with most people; they feel that it is a safe and reasonable choice not to implement green purchase behaviors, thus resulting in a weaker sense of anticipated pride.
At a high level of social norms, consumers have a certain willingness to purchase green products based on their environmental commitment, and perceive that most of them choose to buy green products, which makes consumers more aware that buying green products is the correct behavior and are more willing to implement green purchase behavior. At a low level of social norms, consumers have a certain willingness to purchase green products based on their environmental commitment, but find that most other people do not implement green purchase behavior, which makes consumers aware that non-green purchase behavior have little adverse impact on the environment, thus weakening consumers’ willingness to purchase green products and reducing the possibility of green purchase behavior. Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 6 (H6). Social norms play a positive moderating role between environmental commitment and anticipated pride.
Hypothesis 7 (H7). Social norms play a positive moderating role between environmental commitment and anticipated guilt.
Hypothesis 8 (H8). Social norms play a positive moderating role between environmental commitment and green purchase behavior.
Based on the above, the antecedent of the research framework is environmental commitment and the consequence is green purchase behavior, while anticipated pride and anticipated guilt are mediators and social norms play a moderating role. The research framework is shown in
Figure 1.