Exploring the Value-Action Gap in Green Consumption: Roles of Risk Aversion, Subjective Knowledge, and Gender Differences

Figures & data

Table 1. Snapshot of green consumer research: Former moderating variables tackling the green value-action gap.

Author(s)	Green focus	Moderating variable(s)	Guiding framework(s)	Method(s)	Sample
Vermeir and Verbeke (2006)	Organic food	Sustainability involvement level	Consumer behavior model	Survey and laboratory experiment	456 young consumers from Belgium
Litvine and Wüstenhagen (2011)	Green electricity and energy	Perceived benefit certainty	TPB	Behavioral intervention survey	1163 Swiss consumers
Tung et al. (2012)	Organic food	General trust	TPB	Telephone survey	913 households (majority of Taiwanese consumers)
Zabkar and Hosta (2013)	Product recycling and ecologically conscious decision making	Pro-social status perceptions	TPB and costly signaling theory	Survey	319 consumers from a Central European country
Weisstein et al. (2014)	Light bulbs and green laundry detergents	Price framing	Prospect theory	Laboratory experiment	236 US consumers
Davari and Strutton (2014)	Organic food	Environmental concern	TPB – Expectancy value theory – Social exchange theory	Survey	286 US consumers
Bodur et al. (2015)	Household cleaning products	Self-construal	Self-awareness theory	Laboratory experiment	273 undergraduate students at a Canadian university
Loy et al. (2016)	Meat consumption	Mental contrasting implementation intentions	Mental contrasting theory	Laboratory experiment	60 students at a German university
Kim et al. (2016)	Shampoo and yoghurt	Environmental commitment and message believability	Environmental psychology	Field experiment	231 adult consumers from South Korea
Frank and Brock (2018)	Sustainable grocery products	Product category involvement level and health consciousness	The atmosphere as a marketing tool	Field and laboratory experiments	207 consumers from Germany
Nguyen et al. (2019)	Energy, recycling, and organic buying behaviors	Green product availability and perceived consumer effectiveness	TPB – Cognitive view	Mall intercept survey	416 adult consumers from Vietnam
Langenbach et al. (2020)	Daily pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors	Working memory capacity	Cognition perspective	Experience sampling study	77 college students from the University of Bern, Switzerland
Current research	Daily green consumption values and purchase behaviors	Risk aversion, subjective knowledge, and gender differences	Cognitive view – The value basis theory of Stern and Dietz (1994)	Structured online survey	328 adult consumers from Turkey

Figure 1. The proposed research model.

Table 2. Sample characteristics.

Variable	Category	Frequency	Percentage (%)
Gender	Male	160	49%
	Female	168	51%
Age	18–30	128	39%
	31–42	103	31%
	43–55	97	30%
Education	Highschool degree	35	11%
	Bachelor’s degree	195	59%
	Master’s degree	69	21%
	Doctoral degree	29	9%
Occupation	Private-sector workers	101	31%
	Public-sector workers	68	21%
	University students	88	27%
	Self-employed	49	14%
	Unemployed	12	4%
	Other	10	3%

Note. Participants reported a mean monthly income of 12,400 TL (approximately 685 USD as on August 23, 2022), N = 328.

Table 3. Construct validity and reliability.

Constructs	1	2	3	4	CR	α	AVE
1-General risk aversion	(.45)				.83	.82	.65
2-Green subjective knowledge	.40	(.44)			.85	.84	.64
3-Green consumption values	.41	.43	(.50)		.94	.92	.71
4-Green purchase behaviors	.29	.37	.35	(.42)	.93	.91	.62

Note. Italic bold numbers denote the square root of average variance extracted (AVE) and off diagonal elements show heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) ratio of correlations (N = 328).

Table 4. Pearson correlations and descriptive statistics.

Constructs (# of items)	1	2	3	4	5
1-General risk aversion (6)	1	−.32**	−.35**	−.31**	.12
2-Green subjective knowledge (7)		1	.33**	.36**	−.11
3-Green consumption values (6)			1	.38**	.10
4-Green purchase behaviors (6)				1	.07
5-Gender					1
M	3.13	3.78	3.36	3.11	.53
SD	1.04	.71	1.06	1.20	.51
SE	.06	.03	.07	.06	.02
Skewness	−.16	.59	−.55	−.31	.06
Kurtosis	−1.03	.47	−1.14	−.86	−1.12

Note. Gender: (male = 0, female = 1), M: mean scores, SD: standard deviations, SE: standard errors, 5-point scale where a higher number means a stronger level of the respective construct, Item-wise descriptive statistics are located in Appendix A, **Significant at p < .001 (N = 328).

Table 5. Direct and moderating effects of general risk aversion and green subjective knowledge.

Explanatory variables	Dependent variable: Green purchase behaviors
	β	SE	t-value	95% Confidence interval		Collinearity tolerance	VIF	F-value	Model R^2	ΔR^2
				LLCI	ULCI
Green consumption values	.33	.06	6.80**	.21	.42	.83	1.20	183.7**	.69	.19
General risk aversion	−.25	.05	−4.52**	−.34	−.15	.87	1.23			.14
Green subjective knowledge	.30	.07	4.02**	.15	.45	.92	1.07			.16
Green consumption values × General risk aversion	−.13	.02	−3.15**	−.16	−.09	.98	1.03			.09
Green consumption values × Green subjective knowledge	.12	.01	3.24**	.10	.13	.86	1.28			.08
Green consumption values × Green subjective knowledge × General risk aversion	−.14	.04	−2.06*	−.21	−.06	.84	1.15			.03

Note. Significant at **p < .01 and *p < .05 (N = 328).

Figure 2. Moderation effects of general risk aversion and green subjective knowledge.

Figure 3. Gender differences on main constructs (±Error bars represent standard deviations, *p < .01).

Figure 4. Result summary of predicted moderated moderation model. **p < .01.

Table

Constructs	Items	M	SD	SFL
General risk aversion (GRA)	1) I do not feel comfortable about taking chances	3.05	.98	.82
	2) I prefer situations that have foreseeable outcomes	3.21	1.19	.79
	3) Before I make a decision, I like to be absolutely sure how things will turn out	3.34	1.01	.80
	4) I avoid situations that have uncertain outcomes	3.10	1.16	.80
	5) I feel uncomfortable improvising in new situations	2.95	.90	.83
	6) I feel nervous when I have to make decisions in uncertain situations	3.01	1.02	.83
Green subjective knowledge (GSK)	1) I do not feel knowledgeable about green consumption practices and sustainability overall*	2.03	.74	.83
	2) Among my circle of friends, I am one of the experts on green consumption	4.10	.94	.83
	3) I am familiar with the concepts of social and environmental justice	3.71	.76	.78
	4) I am familiar with processes related to recycling, sustainable giving, and organic waste composting	3.80	.81	.73
	5) I think I know how to judge the quality of a green product	3.85	.80	.87
	6) I think I know enough about green products to feel pretty confident when I make a purchase	3.67	.68	.77
	7) I can tell if a green product is worth the price or not	3.77	.71	.79
Green consumption values (GCVs)	1) It is important to me that the products I use do not harm the environment	3.42	.91	.86
	2) I consider the potential environmental impact of my actions when making many of my decisions	3.61	.95	.87
	3) My purchase habits are affected by my concern for our environment	3.20	1.02	.84
	4) I am concerned about wasting the resources of our planet	3.35	1.13	.83
	5) I would describe myself as environmentally responsible	3.31	1.17	.85
	6) I am willing to be inconvenienced in order to take actions that are more environmentally friendly	3.27	1.01	.80
Green purchase behaviors (GPBs)	1) I like the idea of purchasing green products	3.32	1.38	.80
	2) When I have a choice between two equal products, I purchase the one less harmful to other people and the environment	3.23	1.15	.79
	3) I make a special effort to buy paper and plastic products that are made from recycled materials	3.03	1.31	.83
	4) I have a positive mindset toward purchasing a green version of a product	2.98	1.07	.80
	5) I have switched products for ecological reasons	3.07	1.13	.81
	6) Purchasing green products is a bad idea*	2.03	1.14	.71
Control question	1) Overall, I believe sustainability is extremely important	4.02	.81	NA
Attention check question	1) Please select “strongly agree” to show you are paying attention to this question	4.96	0	NA

Note. All measures are on 5-point Likert-scale where a higher number means a stronger level of agreement for the respective item, SFL: Standardized factor loadings, M: Item means, SD: Standard deviations, *: Items reverse coded, NA: Not applicable, N = 328.

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Data availability statement

The data that supports the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.