As the demand for "green" products grows, companies are utilizing green advertising to appeal to consumers. Unfortunately, this trend has been accompanied by a rise in the phenomenon of greenwashing, which has led to skepticism and distrust among green consumers. Drawing on construal-level theory, this study explores features of green messages that affect motivated resistance to persuasion, greenwashing perceptions, and purchase intentions. We crafted fictitious advertisements varying in psychological distance of consequences (proximal vs. distal outcomes) of consequences and in verb modality (definite vs. probable language). Using an experimental survey (N = 1,617), we found that messages that contained two low-construal features (psychological distance of consequences: proximal, and verb modality: definite) produced the most resistance to persuasion. Motivated resistance to persuasion was found to increase perceptions of greenwashing, while perceptions of greenwashing were found to reduce purchase intentions. The experiment additionally found that the combination of proximal consequences and definite language reduced purchase intentions through serial mechanisms of increased motivated resistance to persuasion and perceptions of greenwashing. These findings enrich the growing understanding of green messaging and carry both practical and theoretical implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Bullock et al. (Thu,) studied this question.