Attend But Disengage: How Illusory Superiority Disrupts Sustainable Food Decision‐Making

Existing literature often treats the intention–behaviour gap in sustainable food consumption as a single breakdown between intention and action. The present research adopts a process‐oriented perspective, arguing that consumers may disengage at multiple stages when evaluating sustainable food products. Drawing on the Hierarchy of Effects model and the moment‐by‐moment analysis capability of consumer biometric methodologies, we propose that initial attention to sustainability cues is necessary but insufficient to elicit positive emotional responses or support sustainable food purchase decisions. Instead, consumers must become emotionally engaged with the product for sustainability information to progress toward purchase intention. Across four studies, we show that emotional engagement, rather than attention alone, drives purchase intention for sustainable food products. We further demonstrate that illusory superiority bias can reduce emotional engagement because consumers who perceive themselves as more sustainable than others may feel less motivated to engage further with sustainable products. However, when this illusion is corrected, consumers may experience contempt in response to the corrective feedback and in turn, increase emotional engagement with sustainable products as a form of self‐affirmation.