The Impact of Anthropomorphism Strategy on Green Consumption Behavior

Background and Aim: With the development of industrialization and urbanization, people’s living standards have been continuously improving. However, this process is accompanied by significant environmental issues, as the global scale of consumption behaviors expands and resource consumption behavior levels increase, leading to increasingly severe environmental problems. Therefore, green consumption behavior has gradually gained widespread attention in academia. Research suggests that anthropomorphism is an effective information dissemination strategy, as visual information is more easily remembered and facilitates information recall compared to textual information. Previous studies have shown that providing anthropomorphism green advertisements can generate more positive attitudes toward green cause-related marketing. There are still some gaps of understanding on the boundary condition of anthropomorphism of environmental hazards. There is no research on the mechanism of how anthropomorphism of environmental hazards affects green consumption. Thus, the study wants to explore the impact mechanism of anthropomorphism of environmental hazards on green consumption behavior. Materials and Methods: Using structured questionnaires, quantitative data on green consumption behavior are collected from urban residents aged 20 and above. SPSS and AMOS are both used to analyze the data, such as reliability, validity, fit, mediation effect, etc. The study employs Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to test the relationships among each variable and to test hypotheses. Results: Anthropomorphism positively impacts green consumption behavior, with perceived empathy, perceived psychological distance, perceived threat, and vulnerability as mediating variables. In terms of promoting green consumption, perceived empathy and psychological distance have the strongest promotional effect, followed by perceived vulnerability, and perceived threat has the weakest effect of all. Conclusion: The research suggests that using anthropomorphism of environmental hazards as a marketing method for environmental protection is effective, and can be used in green marketing strategies. According to the degree of influence of the intermediary effect, in terms of shaping anthropomorphism images for more promotion effect of the anthropomorphism strategy, it is recommended to focus first on perceived empathy and psychological distance, then on perceived vulnerability, and finally on perceived threat.