When to punish? A structural model of cognitive dissonance and moral reasoning in shaping consumer responses to greenwashing

Greenwashing is a form of corporate social irresponsibility, yet consumer responses remain inconsistent. This study examines how consumers form intuitive moral judgements when confronting discrepancies between firms’ sustainability claims and actual practices. Using survey data from 405 consumers and structural equation modelling, findings show perceived greenwashing triggers cognitive dissonance, increasing boycott intentions and activating moral reasoning pathways. Among these, moral coupling most strongly drives punitive responses, whereas moral rationalisation mitigates them and moral decoupling is largely ineffective. Importantly, consumer–brand identification acts as a boundary condition rather than a uniform intensifier, attenuating the translation of dissonance and moral judgements into boycott intentions. Multi-group analyses indicate the mechanism is robust across contexts, though rationalisation is less effective in labour-related than environmental violations, reflecting differences in normative severity.